What does it mean to be a transformational leader in public schools? That question has stayed with me for years, not because it’s difficult to answer in theory, but because it is profoundly difficult to live out in practice. And yet, it is one of the most important questions any K–12 administrator or central office leader can sit with.

There’s a question I have been asked in many forms over the years, in professional development sessions, in quiet hallway conversations after particularly hard days, and in the kind of late-night emails that school leaders send when they are running out of answers. However, the urgency behind the question has never felt more present than it does right now. The question is: