You did the work.
You studied the data. You built the action plan. You communicated the vision. You explained the why. Your staff bought in, people were excited, and for the first few weeks of school, it felt like everyone was moving in the same direction.
And then implementation happened.
By week two or three, the energy starts to shift. Teachers are tired. Students are pushing against new expectations. Lesson plans are due. New instructional or management systems that sounded completely reasonable during professional development suddenly feel much harder when people are expected to implement them every single day.
And then you hear it: the pushback.
For school leaders, this can be incredibly frustrating. But here is something we have to remember:
Resistance during implementation does not automatically mean people no longer believe in the vision.
Sometimes it means the work got hard.
Before You Respond, Diagnose
One of the biggest mistakes leaders can make during this stage is assuming ill intent.
When people stop implementing a new process consistently, we have to determine what is actually happening.
Is this a skill problem?
Is this a clarity problem?
Is this a capacity problem?
Or is this truly a will problem?
Those are not the same thing, and they cannot be addressed the same way.
If someone doesn’t know how to effectively implement a new instructional strategy, another reminder email isn’t going to fix it. If someone understands the expectation, has demonstrated the ability to meet it, and simply refuses to do so, additional coaching probably isn’t the answer either.
Good leadership requires knowing the difference.
Going From Good to Great Is Different
After 30 years in education, I have seen this pattern repeatedly. I have always believed that in many ways, moving a struggling school to a solid school can be easier than moving a good school to a great one.
When systems are significantly broken, the high-leverage changes are often obvious. Establish predictable systems. Improve student management. Create consistency. Be visible. Support teachers. Reduce chaos.
Going from good to great requires something different.
Now we are asking people to refine their practice. We are looking at instructional quality, implementation fidelity, student outcomes, and the small differences that separate acceptable practice from exceptional practice.
That requires a different level of skill, and a different level of leadership.
I Learned This During a Turnaround
When I took over my last turnaround school, I knew we would see improvement simply by fixing some of the broken systems.
During those first few weeks, teachers were grateful for predictability. They had leaders in classrooms asking what they needed. We created systems for supporting students whose behavior had previously overwhelmed teachers. My assistant principal, counselor, and I shared responsibility for getting students the support they needed.
The chaos began to decrease.
Then we moved more deeply into instruction.
That’s when the resistance started.
We would work collaboratively with teachers during planning. We developed strong lessons. We internalized them together. Everyone appeared to understand the plan.
Then we walked into classrooms and saw teachers reverting to the same ineffective practices we were trying to replace.
My leadership team was frustrated. My new assistant principal was taking it personally. It felt like teachers were telling us one thing during planning and deliberately doing another when we left the room.
But I had been through turnaround work before.
I knew we needed to dig deeper.
What we eventually recognized was that, for many teachers, the skill problem was creating a mindset problem.
They weren’t necessarily rejecting where we were going. They didn’t yet have the automaticity, confidence, or instructional skill to consistently execute the new practices, especially when the pressure increased.
So I started meeting individually with teachers.
I asked what was working. What wasn’t? Where were they struggling? What support did they need?
Those conversations told me far more than another compliance check ever could.
Accountability Still Matters
Assuming positive intent does not mean eliminating accountability.
There will be people who resist change simply because they do not want to change. Veteran school leaders have probably encountered the employee who believes, If I wait long enough, I’ll outlast this initiative, and maybe this leader.
We cannot allow persistent refusal to derail progress for students or for the rest of the team.
Expectations must be clear. Monitoring systems must exist. Support must be provided. And when someone repeatedly chooses not to meet an expectation they are capable of meeting, there must be accountability.
But accountability and micromanagement are not the same thing.
When leaders become frustrated or afraid that progress is slipping away, the temptation is to tighten everything: check more, control more, require more documentation, send more reminders.
Sometimes that creates compliance.
It rarely creates ownership.
Protect the Momentum by Building People
This is where recognition becomes incredibly powerful.
Find the wins.
When a teacher tries the new strategy and it works, acknowledge it. When student behavior improves because someone stayed consistent with the new system, celebrate it. When a team begins seeing results from something that felt uncomfortable three weeks earlier, make sure they understand the connection.
People need opportunities to say:
I did this. It worked. I can do it again.
That is how new practices begin becoming habits.
And it creates something else that matters enormously: trust.
When people know their leader sees their effort, not just their mistakes, they are far more likely to walk into your office later and say, I’m struggling with this. Can you help me?
That conversation is infinitely more valuable than discovering the struggle three weeks later through a walkthrough.
Change leadership is not simply about creating the right plan.
It is about keeping people moving when implementing the plan becomes harder than believing in it.
So, when the pushback starts, and it probably will, don’t panic. Don’t immediately tighten control. And don’t abandon the vision.
Diagnose.
Support.
Hold accountable.
Recognize progress.
And keep building your people.
Because ultimately, sustainable school improvement isn’t something we do to people.
It’s something we build with them.
Cheri