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Abstract
School districts across the nation face complexities that include human resource shortages, legislative mandates that arrive with little funding, heightened accountability, and increased politicization. Leading these districts are educators who successfully led at the school building level. Unlike the preparation and support they received when becoming principals and local school administrators, little-to-no such training or onboarding is provided to them when they are elevated to central office leadership roles. As the challenges facing school systems continue to intensify, the need to intentionally prepare a new generation of district leaders is more important than ever. The purpose of this action research study was to analyze the challenges faced by recently appointed district leaders at the onset of their appointments to develop an avenue for best meeting the needs of future leaders promoted to district office leadership. The theory of change centered on using organizational socialization tactics to deliver interventions that focused on reducing uncertainty, adjusting to new leadership roles, and developing learning agility. The findings indicated that leaders moving from school settings to central office leadership positions had to grapple with the weight and breadth of their new roles, while also facing levels of isolation not experienced at the school level. Helping newcomers to refocus their leadership lenses on a new context of leading, to develop the learning agility required to shift from one environment to another, and to establish networks of support during the onboarding process were vital to successful transition experiences. Working together, veteran district leaders who designed and implemented common onboarding practices were able to enhance system-level coherence in one suburban school district, as detailed in this study.