The problem of how a rural school district superintendent develops individual leadership team members and a leadership team is worthy of further investigation. The purpose of the qualitative case study was to describe how the PPSD superintendent develops individual leadership team members using mentoring and described how the PPSD superintendent develops a leadership team by using professional learning communities. The case study will address the following questions:

RQ1: How does a rural school district superintendent use mentoring to develop individual members of the leadership team?

RQ2: How does a rural school district superintendent use professional learning communities to develop a leadership team?

The research study used semi-structured interviews to gather data and information from 10 participants. The theoretical framework is the transformational leadership theory and is evaluated using a qualitative case study design.

The key findings to answer research question one are the use of check in meetings, goal setting and feedback, and the development of trusting relationships with the mentor and mentee to develop the individual member of the leadership team. The key findings to answer question two are the structures or meetings and the modeling by the superintendent to develop a cohesive leadership team.

Future research studies could target similar populations for a comparative analysis and could add to the findings of this research study. Using a comparative case study method would help to understand the results by comparing and contrasting the developmental practices of several rural school districts and their leadership developmental practices.