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Policy-makers and school leaders alike argue that leadership preparation programs can and do make a difference in the work that school leaders do; however, as Leithwood and Massey (2010) noted, "unless leadership development is strongly linked to classroom practice, it will not have much impact" (p. 80). This article provides a case study of a particular leadership preparation program offered at the University of Victoria that exemplified this learning-centered focus by using leadership coaching (Robertson, 2005, 2006) as a core pedagogical design feature and tool to link theory and practice. The article provides an analysis of the program's design features, drawing from scholarship about best practices in leadership program design to show how this learning-centered approach affected participants' experiences and practices as leaders following their participation in the program. The article suggests that the coaching framework offered an open, dynamic, and inclusive means by which to distribute the commitment to enhancing students' learning throughout the school. In effect, coaching was an enabling tool that developed and nurtured distributed forms of leadership while also strengthening a deep moral commitment to improving students' learning.
Interest in leadership preparation programs for schools has increased over the past several decades, in part due to demographic concerns, but perhaps more importantly as a result of an emphasis on school reform and the growing evidence that school leaders can affect student achievement (Leithwood & Massey, 2010; Leithwood & Jantzi, 2000; Robinson, 2008; Robinson, Lloyd, & Rowe, 2008; Timperley, 2009). Indeed, as Allsopp (2011) reported in her recently completed study of principal training programs in Manitoba, "In the last decade, scholars from national and international boards, special task forces and major foundations have taken up this challenge to investigate leadership education" (p. 1). Efforts range from Levine's (2005) controversial analysis of the deficiencies in United States programs, to Darling Hammond et al.'s (2007) comprehensive summary and analysis of exemplary US programs, to Huber's (2004) international survey of exemplary programs, to Leithwood et al.'s (2004) review of research about how professional learning experiences affect aspiring and practicing school leaders. Although the specific purposes of each review reflect jurisdictional needs and concerns, in general these studies have been motivated by a desire to ensure that leadership development programs provide the best educational...