Part 2: Why the Process Matters More Than Leaders Often Expect

Part 2 of a 4 Part Series for System-Level Leaders

By Dr. Tovah Sheldon & Dr. Sarah Pazur

In part one of this series, we explored what a Portrait of a Graduate is and why it matters now. If you missed Part 1, we recommend you review it before reading this article to set a good foundation for Part 2. Click here to review part one.

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One of the clearest lessons from districts across Michigan and the nation is this:

Portraits of a Graduate cannot be written for a community. They must be built with a community.

While the final, polished Portrait of a Graduate (PoG) often receives the most attention, experienced leaders quickly learn that the process is what determines whether the Portrait becomes a living framework or a well-designed poster that quietly fades into the background.

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In part two, we explore an equally important leadership question:

How could this work be done, and what might leaders be thinking about before the first meeting is ever scheduled?

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Why the Process Is the Work

Portrait of a Graduate development is not a technical exercise; it is an adaptive leadership challenge (Heifetz, Grashow, & Linsky, 2009). It requires surfacing values, negotiating differences, confronting tensions between tradition and change, and building shared meaning across diverse stakeholder groups. In other words, don’t just make a poster and check the box!

Districts often underestimate how much the process itself is the work. When leaders rush to the final product, they unintentionally undermine the very outcomes they hope the Portrait will achieve—coherence, ownership, and long-term sustainability.

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8 Components of a High-Quality Portrait of a Graduate Process

There is no single “right” way to develop a Portrait of a Graduate. Context matters. That said, strong processes across districts tend to include eight common components that are adapted thoughtfully to local needs.

The depth, order, and ownership of each component vary across contexts based on timelines, resources, expertise, and other variables. However, these common components are critical to consider as you enter the process.

1. Identify Diverse Stakeholders

Effective Portrait of a Graduate work begins with who is involved and how they will contribute.

Stakeholders range from Boards of Education; district and building administrators; educators and instructional staff; support and operational staff; students (not just high schoolers – yes, even your youngest can and should contribute and have valuable ideas!); families and guardians; community organizations; and business leaders… the list could go on. 

Not all stakeholders participate in the same way or at the same time.  Some provide input during focus groups or listening tours. Others may complete a formative survey or give feedback on the final draft; however, the Design Team, a diverse group of strategically identified participants, will remain engaged throughout the entire process. They are both stewards and decision makers. 

The Design Team ensures coherence, equity of voice, and quality decision-making, while preventing the process from becoming either overly centralized or unmanageably broad (Coburn, 2003). When district leaders provide individuals with clearly defined roles and responsibilities, participants will feel ownership over the outcome and have agency in the endgame.  

2. Reflect on and Prioritize Individual Competencies

Before groups can meaningfully synthesize, individuals need space to reflect. High-quality processes create opportunities for participants to individually consider:

• What skills, mindsets, and dispositions matter most for future graduates
• Which competencies feel essential, missing, or overemphasized today
• How do personal experiences shape perspectives on readiness

These reflections are often guided, but not constrained by research-based frameworks. The goal is to balance prompted thinking with open exploration, ensuring both rigor and authenticity.

3. Review a Diverse Set of Portrait Examples

Leaders sometimes worry that showing examples from other districts will “limit creativity.” In practice, the opposite is true. When thoughtfully facilitated, exploring diverse Portraits of a Graduate from different contexts helps stakeholders value divergent thinking and develop a shared mental model of what is possible. Intentional dialogue around examples allows participants to ask:

• What resonates with us, and why?
• What feels misaligned with our context?
• What values are made visible here?

This balance between being grounded in research and practicing in real life for local meaning-making is critical to high-integrity work.

4. Engage in Generative Shared Experiences

Strong Portrait processes are intentionally grounded in common, generative experiences. These are specific, consistent activities that surface a wide range of perspectives before moving toward convergence. When the activity is repeated across different contexts, different stakeholder groups, and over time, whole communities can feel a collective understanding without necessarily all being ‘in the room’ at one time. 

This is not a flaw in the process; it is a sign that real learning is occurring. As Wenger (1998) reminds us, meaning is negotiated, not delivered. The goal is not immediate consensus, but rich data that informs a first draft grounded in lived experience.

5. Ensure Clear, Transparent Communication. Engage in Generative Shared Experiences

One of the most common reasons any change effort stalls or fails is a lack of clear, consistent communication over time. It is not that individuals aren’t good communicators; it is that there isn’t a communication plan going into the complex process, as well as follow through and feedback loops throughout. 

Effective leaders clearly communicate:

• The purpose of the work
• The phases of the process
• Timelines and meeting structures
• When and how voices are being gathered
• How drafts will be shared and revised
• Who makes which decisions
• What decisions are advisory versus final

Communication should occur in multiple formats, including, but not limited to, written updates, visuals, presentations, social media campaigns, and one-on-one conversations. It is all about stakeholders seeing themselves in the process, confirming understanding along the way, and understanding how their input genuinely matters.

Transparency builds trust. Silence erodes it.

6. Synthesize Ideas Individually and Collectively

After divergence comes synthesis. High-quality processes intentionally move from:

🧠Individual
Synthesis↔🤝Small-Group
Synthesis↔🌐Collective
Synthesis↔🔄Repeat

Draft Portraits often begin as lists of many competencies, which are then refined into a smaller, clearer set with typically five to seven core attributes. 

This phase requires skilled facilitation to:

• Name and work through tensions rather than gloss over them
• Identify patterns and themes
• Reduce redundancy without losing meaning

Across this phase, additional skilled facilitation further builds each attribute or competency into a co-constructed definition, teeing up later implementation work.

7. Undertake Multiple Iteration-Feedback-Refinement Cycles

It can be tempting to rush or forgo the drafting process and impose existing school culture artifacts like lists of character traits or PBIS slogans onto the Portrait of a Graduate. While those items can inform the final draft, Portraits of a Graduate should not emerge fully formed.

Strong districts use iterative cycles that include intentional activities such as stakeholder feedback sessions, focus groups, or “beta tests”, surveys, and informal dialogue. The Design Team then integrates that feedback into new drafts and tries again.  Districts often iterate through 2-5 versions of their Portrait of a Graduate prior to naming one “final”. 
 
A critical part of draft iteration is identifying the responsible group(s) for the actual graphics that enhance the words and definitions within the Portrait.  This can be an unexpected hang-up to community buy-in and ownership. Depending on a district’s resources and values, different districts decide differently.  There are five basic options: 

• Students create the graphic design
• Staff/Educator creates the graphic design 
• A combination of AI and the Design Team
• The external facilitator/organization can provide the design
• An external design/market company, a local graphic designer, or possibly a local artist.

There isn’t a right way, there just needs to be clarity in that strategic approach to iterate so that eventually, the final version can make it to Board approval. We know pictures are worth a 1000 words, so this decision matters and often reflects the district's particular values. Leaders also close the loop by explicitly showing how the feedback informed revisions along each step of the way. This step is often skipped, and its absence is noticed.  

This part also takes time, which is something districts often feel they don’t have.  Yet, this component speaks to the old adage, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together!” Balancing momentum, perfection, and going the distance is hard work, but knowing that about the process up front, allows leaders to make the right decisions for the district’s timeline and resources.  

8. Establish an Intentional Approval, Adoption, and Implementation Plan

Formal approval by a Board of Education matters. But it is not the finish line.
Leaders should plan early for what comes after adoption, ensuring the Portrait is:

• Owned by the community
• Revisited and iterated
• Integrated into the daily life of the system

This translates into intentional sustainability moves and situating the work within the larger systems. Sustainability moves include but are not limited to: 

• Going deeper with competencies, learning progressions, and living rubrics for student, educator, and community ownership.
• Going the distance with instructional and assessment practices by design
• Integrated assessment and feedback systems with all youth and adults
• Professional learning and leadership development
• Coherence across roles and departments

And once again, this work must be done with people—not to or for them. Situating the work means leaders are examining and making clear connections to existing priorities, such as:

• Strategic Plan goals
• School improvement efforts
• Portraits of an Educator or Leader
• Bond efforts
• Community engagement strategies

When aligned intentionally, Portraits of a Graduate become not an additional initiative, but the organizing framework that brings clarity to many.

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Knowing the Components is Not Enough: A Readiness Inquiry for Leaders

Before launching or redesigning your process, consider this question:

Which of these components make sense for our context—and why?

High-quality Portrait work is not only about fidelity to a template or research-backed process. It is about high integrity, customizing the process components so that they reflect your values, honor your people, and align with your strategic reality.

Should you facilitate your own process? 

In addition to crystalizing your process and the components that make sense in your context, leaders should think hard about whether they want to or should they facilitate their own process. The honest answer is: it depends. Some districts have the internal capacity, expertise, trust, and bandwidth to facilitate their own process. Many do not.

What we know from experience is that leaders facilitating their own district’s Portrait often face challenges:

• Power dynamics that limit candor
• Difficulty participating fully while facilitating
• Competing priorities that disrupt continuity

External facilitation from trusted experts can provide neutrality, coherence, and expertise, therefore allowing leaders to engage as learners and stewards rather than managers of the process.  

If you are unsure, reach out to a trusted, quality facilitator like Michigan Virtual for a conversation.  In our readiness discussion, we can examine and assess what makes sense for you.

• Maybe you do have the capabilities and capacities, and you just want a thought partner or coach in the process to help you if you get stuck or to support you with co-planning. 
• Maybe you want more of a consulting approach, advising you, or to trade back and forth, facilitating some parts and not others based on your dynamic context; or… 
• Maybe co-presenting to concurrently build your capacity, or Michigan Virtual facilitating every piece in the process is the way to go with full onsite presence?

There are more options than just those few named, so, again, the right answer to this inquiry is “it depends.” Let’s connect and we’ll figure out what will work best for you, together. 

In part three of our Portrait of a Graduate series, we will show how three Michigan school districts successfully implemented their POG work, grounded it in community, aligned it with strategy, and treated it as an evolving commitment to their communities.

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References & Further Resources

• Coburn, C. E. (2003). Rethinking scale: Moving beyond numbers to deep and lasting change. Educational Researcher.
• Heifetz, R., Grashow, A., & Linsky, M. (2009). The practice of adaptive leadership. Harvard Business Press.
• Pazur, S. & Sheldon, T. (2025, Dec. 11). Presentation:  Future Ready by Design. MAPSA Symposium. Detroit, MI. 
• Sheldon, T. (n.d.). Portrait of a Graduate design and facilitation practices. Michigan Virtual. https://michiganvirtual.org
• Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge University Press.

*Disclaimer: The graphics included in this content may have been created or enhanced using artificial intelligence–based tools.

About the Authors

Dr. Tovah Sheldon

Michigan Virtual School Design Strategist

For more than 20 years, Dr. Tovah Sheldon has served education as a teacher, professor, administrator, researcher, leadership coach, and consultant across pK-12 and higher education. She has a passion to cultivate constructive relationships, bring innovation to spaces that are managing complex change, and support implementation of evidence-based practices that promote equity and opportunity for all. Her demonstrated expertise ranges from curriculum, instruction, and assessment to professional development, capacity building, strategic planning, and system’s iteration for growth and sustainability. Dr. Sheldon has also served on various boards from within her community of Jackson and across the state of Michigan. Dr. Sheldon earned her Ph.D. from Michigan State University in Curriculum, Instruction, and Teacher Education.

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Dr. Sarah Pazur

Director of School Performance at CS Partners

Dr. Pazur is the Director of School Leadership at CS Partners and a consultant with Michigan Virtual. Her education career spans over 20 years; she has served as a teacher, curriculum director, principal, and virtual principal in project-based middle and high schools across Detroit. She is a member of the Future of Learning Council; a national and local presenter, and her education writing has appeared in EdSurge, EdWeek, Education Post, Phi Delta Kappan, English Leadership Quarterly, Principal Leadership Magazine, and Hybrid Pedagogy. Her chapter, “A Bridge Across Our Fears: Poetic Imagination as a Catalyst for School Change,” appears in the book Cultivating Imagination in Leadership, with Teachers College Press.

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