Collaborative Leadership Driving Educational Excellence

Eric Spoto, Interim Chief Technology and Innovation Officer, Gwinnett County Public Schools

Eric Spoto started off as a high school chemistry and physics teacher and swim coach in Gwinnett County in 1999, later becoming an assistant principal. He moved to the district office in 2009 as Director of School Operations. In 2016, he was named Executive Director of School Operations. School Operations provides strategic and operational support to principals across the district, overseeing, processes like promotion, grading, graduation, scheduling, district calendars, accreditation, policy implementation and legislative impact analysis. In 2024, he became Interim Chief Technology Innovation Officer, bringing an instructional lens to the district’s technology strategy.

In this feature, Spoto outlines his three-dimensional leadership philosophy, highlighting collaboration, operational clarity, and strategic vision as the drivers of district-wide impact. His focus on alignment, crisis-ready execution and technology-enabled learning demonstrates how large school systems can innovate responsibly while keeping student success at the center.

A Three-Dimensional Approach to Leadership

I have learned quite a bit about leadership from observing exceptional leaders over the past 20 years. Experience has shown me that effective leaders successfully operate in three interconnected areas, interpersonal leadership, organizational leadership and strategic leadership. 

Interpersonal leadership is about building strong relationships. It involves creating strong human connections and maintaining effective communication, not only within your immediate team, but across departments, divisions, the broader district and individual schools.

These skills create trust, which is the foundation of all leadership. When trust is present, interpersonal leadership looks more like a support system rather than a compliance center and without it, efforts intended to help can be perceived as mere mandates.

This foundation drives effective organizational leadership level, which is your ability to create and sustain culture. How you lead in this space impacts your ability to influence people and processes to improve teaching, learning and overall institutional performance. Great organizational leaders develop a clear vision, set strategic objectives, make thoughtful decisions and motivate their staff by leveraging their unique strengths and fostering a positive, innovative work environment. They create clarity and remove obstacles, recognizing that at the district level, their choices impact every student far beyond a single classroom or school. District-level leaders are system builders, whose work creates the conditions for student achievement at scale.

“I have found that the common denominator of success in educational leadership is collaboration.”

Finally, strong leaders are incredible at strategic planning. They are systems thinkers who cast a vision for the future. That vision for the future must anticipate future needs, and align decisions, resources, structures and processes with those needs. Strategic planning drives innovation and long-term success. Strategic leaders make choices today that set the stage for success over the next three to five years and beyond.

Great leaders operate across these three areas simultaneously. Each building on the other. You can’t be a successful organizational leader without strong interpersonal skills, and you can’t achieve strategic leadership without successfully operating in the other two.

This three-dimensional approach guides how strategy is translated into coordinated actions across the school district. It begins by aligning all stakeholders around a shared vision and strategic plan. While making decisions, it is imperative that you work with schools rather than impose directives. By bringing stakeholders together and creating space for open, meaningful dialogue, problems are clearly defined, and solutions are developed collaboratively.

This approach is especially significant during critical moments, when coordination, clarity and continuity matter most. During the COVID-19 pandemic, when vaccinations became available to educators, I led a cross-divisional team to schedule vaccination appointments, during the school day, for interested staff members. Over a six-week period, we assisted the health department by coordinating required vaccine doses, scheduling staff for their first shots within three weeks and completing their second doses in the remaining three weeks. We had to ensure proper registration, scheduling, and communication were all part of the process.

The pandemic also brought on the need for virtual learning options.  For the 2021-22 school year, families had the option to enroll their child in virtual learning. Although the district already operated a virtual school for grades four through 12, there was not an option for kindergarten through third grade. I led a cross-divisional team to launch a virtual school within three months for grades K-3, serving thousands of students. It was a highly collaborative effort that brought together district office staff across departments and divisions, as well as principals and teachers, to create a virtual learning option that met family needs. This followed an earlier phase of the pandemic when teachers were delivering concurrent instruction to both in-person and remote students.

Shaping the Future of Learning

Meaningful student engagement in the classroom happens when technology and instruction are intentionally aligned. Technology teams must partner with curriculum teams to select and support solutions that promote High-Quality Tier I instruction, engage students and enhance the learning experience. It is our responsibility to design, implement and maintain innovative technology solutions that strengthen teaching and drive active student engagement. For example, as districts look ahead, Artificial Intelligence (AI) will continue to require thoughtful implementation. While AI presents opportunities to improve staff productivity and personalize learning pathways for students, district staff must work collaboratively to support schools by establishing clear guardrails around ethical use, academic integrity and data privacy. The focus should be on ensuring it meaningfully supports instruction and aligns with district standards and values. Our team in the technology division was part of a cross-divisional collaborative group who worked to establish Human-Centered AI guidance. This collaborative group also develop policy and procedure around AI.

The best outcomes occur when groups of people work together collectively on solutions rather than in silos. This reflects a broader truth that I have seen throughout my career, that the common denominator of success is collaboration. Collaborative problem-solving not only produces more effective results but ultimately benefits students the most.  

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