Keturah Raabe

For Keturah Raabe, the point of NEA’s leadership development work isn’t to help NEA members earn new titles.

“What I like about the work we do is that, first off, it’s about relationship building. Secondly, it focuses on the skill of reflection and helps to equip members with the knowledge, skills, and abilities needed to lead,” she says.

“It’s about turning inward and saying, ‘What do I need as an individual to be a better person, a better listener, a better advocate? Those are the skills I believe are essential before you can talk about leading or mobilizing others or driving the organization’s agenda.”

Keturah’s work may be most visible each spring at the NEA Leadership Summit, when more than 1,500 NEA members dive into the seven competency domains of the NEA Leadership Competency Framework. But that’s one singular event.

Year-round, Keturah collaborates with members in state affiliates and NEA colleagues to help shift the paradigm of how we define leaders.

Every one of our 3 million NEA members is a leader, she says.

“You don’t have to be in an elected position to lead. It’s not about that,” says Keturah, who is currently working through her second “term” at NEA. Every member leader has the capacity to create change.

“That change could be advocating for better resources needed in one’s career/profession or developing a plan to improve one’s community. The work that we do motivates members to see leadership in everything they do. Just like educators help to develop the potential of the whole person, we help to develop the leadership potential of the whole member.”