Chapter 6: Leadership Development: A SERVE Program Director’s Autoethnography Available to Purchase

This chapter introduces SERVE Leadership Development Program as an intervention focused on improving schools by improving school leaders. Program developer, Dr. Ronny Green, and I, SERVE Director of Program on Education Leadership, launched the intervention in the public schools of Duval County, Florida; Wake County, North Carolina; and continued with my university teaching in preparing school leaders. This retrospective, however, is not focused on differences made in program participant observation, but on the observer, where the observer is seen not as much the agent of change but the changed. To accomplish the task, I use autoethnography, narrative informed by my personal experiences as an educational leader and addressed to the academic audience. Stated as a research question: How have I been impacted by the SERVE Leadership Development Program principles and practices?

Data sources include my personal journals, reflection on instruction, and documents written by me and others in pursuit of university tenure and promotion. Narrative analysis reveals three overarching themes resulting from reflecting on my 23 years-engagement with SERVE Leadership Development practices and principles, including: 1) Follow your passion; 2) Don’t be a smart ass; and 3) Relationships is all there is. My hope is that downstream education interventionists and educational leaders may leverage my insights and program practices and principles to improve public schools and schooling.