In the ever-evolving landscape of education, the role of leadership must extend beyond the boundaries of administration. Inspired by the work of Dr. John Eckert on collective leadership, Advent Episcopal School Director of Upper School Ben Burgess explores how distributed and collaborative leadership models empower educators to collaborate effectively, innovate, and elevate student outcomes, delving into practical strategies for fostering a culture of shared responsibility and reflective practice, creating schools where every educator is a leader.
Distributive Leadership Leads to Decisions that Endure
At Advent Episcopal School (Birmingham, AL), which serves 200-plus students in grades JPK-8, collective leadership is a clear destination the entire faculty, staff, and administration are working towards together. Leading the charge is Head of School Claire Vaughn, who guides the school as it journeys toward becoming a place where teacher voices are heard in profound and meaningful ways.
According to Burgess, “rather than relying solely on a top-down hierarchy, collective leadership operates more like a web — decision-making power is distributed based on expertise, not just title. At the heart of this approach is a belief that if we truly put students and their needs first, then the insights and perspectives of every member of our community deserve a seat at the table.”
Advent’s move toward this model wasn’t prompted by a single crisis but by a shared recognition: schools are more innovative, responsive, and mission-aligned when leadership is shared. Collective leadership creates space for more voices, which leads to stronger ideas, healthier collaboration, and decisions that endure because they’re built together.
Alignment and Refinement With Intention
Advent is intentional about saying a collective leadership model is not something the school has “arrived” at. Rather, it’s a goal the school is continually working toward. Alignment and energy require ongoing attention, clear communication, and trust through a process that will take years, not months. At Advent, the team is focused on creating rhythms that keep the school moving toward its target, even while still refining the process.
In planning, there is an intentional start with the school’s mission and then working backward. Before launching an initiative or making a major decision, the team asks, “Does this advance our mission, or is it just reacting to what’s urgent?” That question serves as a filter to keep priorities clear.
In the area of internal communications, Advent is building consistent touchpoints: leadership meetings that are not just about updates but about problem-solving together, sharing the “why” behind decisions, and making space for multiple perspectives. Decision-making is shifting toward a model where expertise guides the process: the person with the deepest understanding of an issue leads the conversation, regardless of title. While Burgess attests that the collaborative leadership model is neither “perfect” nor “finished,” by aiming for shared ownership, celebrating small wins, and regularly recalibrating focus, Advent is building a culture where alignment and energy are the norm rather than the exception.
While leadership team meetings are important for alignment and planning, some of the most impactful collaborative leadership happens outside the conference room. The real work often shows up in the hallway conversations, the quick check-ins between classes, and the intentional pauses to ask stakeholders, “If the school did this, how would that affect you?” Often, the phrase “Can you run this by _______ before we decide on this?” demonstrates the mindset of seeking input before moving forward, keeping decisions grounded in the lived experience of teachers, staff, and even students.
In formal meetings, Vaughn and leaders are working to be more intentional with agendas, prioritizing fewer topics but digging deeper, making space for questions, shared problem-solving, and clarity on next steps. The goal is to make meetings a launchpad for action, with the understanding that true collaboration continues in all the informal moments between those meetings.
Prioritizing Focus and Resources
For many schools, balancing demands and strategy remains an ongoing challenge. Urgent issues will always compete for attention. Advent filters decisions through the aforementioned guiding question: “Does this advance our mission, or is it just reacting to the loudest thing in the room?”
“When everything feels urgent, we step back and look at alignment,” shares Burgess. “Will this action strengthen our core programs? Will it meaningfully impact students? Is it sustainable with our current capacity?” If the answer is “no” to any of those, the project is either paused or reimagined.
As an example, during the summer of 2025, the Advent leadership team walked through the entire school calendar asking, “What do these events communicate to our community?” On the surface, it looks like a logistical task, but in reality, it touches every part of school life: academic pacing, operational needs like facilities and staffing, and how our events communicate identity to families and the wider community. In a school with significant history, it can be easy to default to “We’ve done it this way for 75 years.”
Yet Advent is striving to both honor its identity as a downtown Birmingham school that has stood through so much history and to ensure it continues to serve the needs of current families in meaningful ways. Under Vaughn’s leadership, voices from academic leaders, operations staff, and advancement are at the same table asking together: “What story does this calendar tell about who we are?” This illustrates what happens when people have the ability to provide feedback into areas outside their direct responsibility. The balance between ownership and openness has been key to making collaboration sustainable. While Burgess attests that not every decision is perfect every time, by taking time for reflection and parsing decisions through these filters, the school is more intentional, more aligned, and less reactive.
One of the most important shifts has been making time to ask, “Who is best equipped to lead this?” instead of “Who has time?” This shift has led Advent toward role clarity based on strengths and expertise rather than defaulting to who happens to be available. The school has also begun mapping responsibilities so the leadership team can see, in writing, where each person’s “lane” begins and ends. This doesn’t put an end to collaboration, but instead shows where collaboration is essential and where individual ownership works best. This helps avoid duplicating work, reduces the “I thought you were handling that” moments, and gives people permission to let go of things that aren’t truly theirs to carry.
Importantly, the team at Advent is working to normalize saying, “I can’t take that on right now” without guilt. This is a cultural change, but it is critical to preventing burnout. The result is that when people ultimately step into leadership on a project, they do so with clarity, energy, and the freedom to lead without second-guessing whether they’re overstepping.
Empowering Mid-Level Leaders and Faculty
“One of the simplest but most powerful shifts I’ve made as a leader is learning to ask, ‘How do we fix this?’ instead of feeling like I need to have the answer,” says Burgess. “More often than not, the best ideas come from the people closest to the work — whether it’s a teacher who sees the day-to-day reality in the classroom or even a parent who offers a perspective I hadn’t considered.”
This kind of collaborative approach only works if it begins with humility. Leadership has to start from the understanding that the strongest solutions often will often come from others and that listening well is just as important as speaking with authority. “When I walk into a meeting with a problem and a few possible ideas, I’ve often found that the collective wisdom of the room — or sometimes the insight of a single teacher — produces a far more workable and creative answer,” Burgess shares.
The key condition that makes this possible is trust. Faculty need to know and feel that their ideas are genuinely valued, that speaking up won’t be met with defensiveness, and that leadership will actually act on good suggestions. The role of administrators isn’t to be the smartest person in the room but to be responsible for the solution that emerges. At Advent, the impact has been twofold: first, solutions are stronger because they’re informed by the people who know the work best. Second, faculty feel genuine ownership over the changes implemented, and they’re invested in seeing changes succeed because they helped shape them from the start.
Putting Cross-Functional Collaboration Into Practice
Vaughn has been intentional about building a culture where diverse voices are not just invited, but expected to be part of decision-making. That cultural foundation makes cross-functional collaboration possible.
One concrete example is the way Advent views student discipline conversations. Historically, discipline might have been seen as the responsibility of administration alone. By bringing teachers, counselors, and administrators into the same conversation, the school has created clearer expectations for students and more consistent follow-through across classrooms. Teachers now feel like they’re not just enforcing someone else’s policy, but helping to shape and refine it. That collaboration has reduced mixed messages, given teachers more confidence, and ultimately made the school’s approach to discipline more restorative and student-centered.
Cross-functional collaboration and collective leadership doesn’t have to mean more meetings — it means structuring conversations so that the right voices are at the table and ensuring that feedback is both welcomed and acted upon.
Ideas Into Action
Advent Episcopal School Director of Upper School Ben Burgess shares advice that has shaped the school’s journey to build a more collaborative and reflective leadership culture.
Related Programming
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