In this episode, Dr. Michael Hinojosa, veteran superintendent with over 40 years of experience leading six different school districts, shares his Success Triangle framework for balancing relationships between school boards, communities, and district staff with students at the center. Drawing from his unique experience serving Dallas ISD in two separate tenures a decade apart (2005-2011 and 2015-2022), Michael reveals how he scaled early college programs that enabled 1,100 students to graduate high school with associate's degrees, developed 50 future superintendents from his principal ranks, and passed over $5 billion in facility bonds. He discusses his organic 100-person entry plan, why superintendent success hinges on mastering board relations, political navigation, and finance, and how coaching cultures—not stand-and-deliver professional development—actually transform instruction. Through stories spanning from curriculum gaps to reimagining career pathways, Michael demonstrates why effective leadership is about coaching, not playing, and why incrementalism is innovation's worst enemy.

Key Insights

• The Success Triangle in Practice: How color-coding your calendar to ensure balanced time with board, staff, and community prevents the "boiling frog syndrome" of losing support
• The Organic Entry Plan: Why interviewing 100 stakeholders with five strategic questions builds both relationships and qualitative intelligence before making any moves
• Dialogue Over Discussion: The difference between "let me convince you I'm right" versus "let's find a better way together" in building shared vision
• Finance as the Blind Spot: Why most superintendents are insecure about board relations, politics, and finance—and why finance is the only one you can't fake through hunger, humility, and smarts
• Talent Management as Strategy: How rotating top principals through six-month executive leadership team assignments and running year-long leadership academies creates systematic succession planning
• Coaching vs. Stand-and-Deliver: Why instructional coaches separated from teacher evaluation unlock vulnerability and growth that one-shot PD sessions never achieve
• High Expectations Require Support: How the "soft bigotry of low expectations" and "high expectations without support is cruelty" both fail students who need abundance mentality and relevant pathways
• Incrementalism Is Innovation's Worst Enemy: Why transformation—not reform—requires blowing up agrarian calendars, seven-period days, and the assumption that learning only counts inside school buildings

Resources:

• The Together Network for Transformation (TNT) (Dr. Hinojosa's leadership coaching and consulting work)
• Dr. Hinojosa's book on urban superintendent leadership (available through major retailers): Superintendent-Wise: Critical Lessons for Leading Your District

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