Elisa MacDonald
Skillful & Intentional Team Leadership
Intentional team leaders make learning possible.
District priorities move forward when schools develop teachers, coaches and administrators to lead teams with intention, skill and an unwavering belief in students and each other.
Elisa MacDonald
Two-time bestselling author, consultant, and always a teacher at heart.
Some think of me as"The Team Lady."
But my work is much more than teaching educators how to facilitate meetings.
I partner with districts, schools and organizations to build leadership capacity, helping teams advance priorities and achieve lasting improvements.
Specializing in:
What District and School Leaders Say
Bestselling Books
by Elisa MacDonald
The Core Framework in Elisa's Work
The MacDonald Team Matrix ™
MacDonald, Elisa B. (2023) Intentional moves: How skillful team leaders impact learning. Corwin.
MacDonald, Elisa B. (2013) The Skillful Team Leader: A resource for overcoming hurdles to professional learning for student achievement. Thousand Oaks, CA: Cowin. (Original publication.)
I remember driving into work about to lead school coaches in our monthly PD about how to best support our teacher-led teams when a question that had been nagging me for years finally made sense.
How is it a team can get along and get things done, but still have little to no impact on teacher practice and student learning?
Influenced by the words of Jim Knight's 2011 groundbreaking book, Unmistakable Impact, it became clear to me back then that not all team leaders think about "impact".
Even more perplexing to me was this question:
How is it a team who does NOT get along and lacks trust between members, CAN have a positive impact on student scores and learning?
I needed to create a framework that could explain the relation between how a team functions and its impact.
I came up with The MacDonald Team Matrix™, first published in 2013 in The Skillful Team Leader and reprinted in 2023 in Intentional Moves as, "The STL Team Function, Impact Matrix".
By viewing teams through two lenses (both function AND impact simultaneously) four types of teams emerge. I have made it my life's work to help district, school and teacher leaders make sure their team collaboration lands in the learning quad (Quadrant 1: high-functioning high-impact) so that teachers practice grows and teams achieve greater learning outcomes for students.
Since publishing The MacDonald Team Matrix™ in 2013, I have written more about this dual lens for looking at teams in my 2023 bestselling book, Intentional Moves, which holds nearly 150 strategies for helping your team get to quadrant 1.
The MacDonald Team Matrix™ has been referenced, cited and reprinted in numerous publications, including Doug Fisher and Nancy Frey's books.
You can read chapter excerpts explaining the framework on Corwin's website: Chapter 2 "Don't Settle for High-Functioning Teams" (Intentional Moves. Corwin 2023.) And Chapter 3 "Alone Together: Overcoming Hurdles to Foster a High-Functioning, High-Impact Collaborative Team" (The Skillful Team Leader. Corwin, 2013.)
...and you can also view a short primer of me explaining my Team Function Impact Matrix on my channel: Skillful Intentional Team Leadership.
For more free resources subscribe to my popular blog.
As a bonus, receive a
"SMA-A-HRTIE Goal" Checklist!
I have trained and developed thousands of teacher leaders, coaches and administrators in skillful and intentional leadership to get their teams to Quadrant One (high function, high impact) on
The MacDonald Team Matrix™ .
What Teacher Leaders Say:
Watch Elisa
on Peter DeWitt and Mike Nelson's
"Leaders Coaching Leaders" podcast.
