Building a district-wide culture of coaching
Client context
A mid-sized urban California school district serving nearly 7,000 students across more than 14 schools, operating under state receivership. The Education Services Division included over 50 instructional leaders spanning central office and school sites.
The challenge
The district was working against a clear and urgent deadline: meet the thresholds required to exit state oversight. That outcome depended on strengthening academic performance across every school, but the district’s existing evaluation process worked against them. It was punitive by design, measuring performance without ever building it. Leaders weren’t investing time in developing the people on their teams, and there was no real system for growth between one evaluation cycle and the next. Teachers and staff got feedback once a year, at review time, when it was too late to change course.
The deeper issue wasn’t isolated to classrooms. Instructional leadership was inconsistent at every level of the Education Services division, from central office down to school sites. Principals weren’t necessarily equipped to coach their assistant principals. Assistant principals weren’t necessarily equipped to coach their instructional coaches. The gap in coaching capacity showed up as a gap in outcomes, and with a state deadline attached to those outcomes, the district couldn’t afford to keep operating the way they had been.
They needed a coaching culture that ran through the whole division, not a training that lived in one department. Real rhythms of feedback, accountability, and support built into the year, so every leader, at every level, saw themselves as an instructional leader responsible for developing the people they led, all in service of stronger student academic outcomes.
The approach
The Good Life Leadership Academy designed a year-long leadership development initiative for 55 leaders across five distinct cohorts: the Education Services team, principals, assistant principals, instructional coaches, and school site support specialists.
Rather than a single training delivered once to everyone, each cohort worked through programming tailored to their specific role and sphere of influence, anchored in a shared coaching framework so the language and expectations stayed consistent across the entire division. Sessions combined group learning with individual coaching support, giving leaders both the framework and the one-on-one reinforcement to actually apply it. Coaching conversation structures. Trust-building strategies. Questioning techniques that shifted feedback from general to specific. Time and calendar practices that made consistent coaching possible instead of aspirational.
The goal was to strengthen developmental coaching at every level, so instructional leadership became something the whole division practiced, not something one office was responsible for.
The outcome
The results showed up in both mindset and practice.
- 100% of participants across all five cohorts rated the content directly relevant to their role
- Coaches saw a 62% improvement in influence strategies and a 48% improvement in coaching approaches
- 89% of instructional leaders moved from sporadic to consistent monthly coaching, a 33 percentage point increase
- New coaching practices were implemented within one week of program completion
Coaching stopped being a role held by a few people and became a mindset held by the whole division, one that moved them closer to the outcomes their receivership deadline demanded.
In their words
“I have truly made a shift after working with Ilesha Graham of The Good Life [Brand]. Her training has provided a road map on how to support my team through the coaching cycle with compassion and professionalism. The one on one support I received was empowering and specifically supported me in what I needed to learn to be more effective . . . I needed a way to measure and monitor progress and through our [coaching] conversations I was able to create that for myself. I value what I have experienced through The Good Life Brand. It has had a positive impact on my coaching and my confidence.”
“The team sessions were extremely impactful. In our last session you helped us tackle an existing problem. We implemented the strategies the following week. The result led to a new practice in our division. Our first Director’s meeting . . . was a success. We are fired up and ready to go!”
“I feel more empowered as a leader because of the training I’ve received. The sessions and coaching were great for building my capacity as a leader. I hope we continue with Good Life next year.”
Key takeaway
A punitive system can’t produce the growth an organization is being held accountable for. A coaching culture can.
These types of outcomes aren’t limited to school districts, or even education. They are possible when a committed organization stops treating development as an annual event and starts building it into how people lead every day. Any organization under pressure to improve outcomes, whether that pressure comes from a regulator, a board, or a bottom line, faces the same choice: keep measuring performance after the fact, or build the coaching capacity that grows it in real time. When leaders at every level are equipped to develop the people they lead, the outcomes follow.
