Like you, I was hired to lead change. It’s what we as school leaders do every day, all day. Yet few, if any of us, were taught the science and strategy behind implementing it.

I became fascinated by change psychology, organizational behavior, and how school cultures and systems respond to change in my first year in leadership, and even more while working and studying full-time for my doctorate at Penn. Years later, an unexpected turn in my career changed the path I thought I was on. It sent me back to the questions I had explored in graduate school and into new ones about sense-making, resistance, and what it takes for change to be adopted. Eventually, that path led to a certification in change management.

My first certification class surprised me. I was the only educator in a room full of professionals from nearly every other industry. The only one. Many were earlier in their careers and learning a discipline that had never been part of my preparation, even after four degrees and years in senior leadership.

I couldn’t ignore the disparity: education asks leaders to implement consequential change in organizations built on relationships and trust, often while under intense public scrutiny. Yet we rarely teach them how to manage the human and organizational dynamics of change, even though this preparation is routine in countless other fields.