When Toriano Holloway begins his work as superintendent at the Quitman School District, he will bring experience in a cluster of academic areas, including service as a central office administrator and as a high school principal.

He has also examined the role of principals in his doctoral study. Holloway’s doctoral dissertation is called “The Effect of Principals’ Leadership Style On Student Growth and Teacher Behavior In the Accountability Era” — and in it, Holloway thinks about the kind of leadership teachers desire from principals at a time when assessments play increasingly large roles in education.

Holloway, who will begin his tenure with the Quitman School District on Jan. 1, comes from the Starkville Oktibbeha Consolidated School District, where he serves as assistant superintendent for federal programs and operations. He has served in a number of other positions — including high school principal — over the course of his career.

Holloway comes to Quitman with a three-year contract and a salary of $128,000 a year, he said. He will take the place of Lynn Weathersby, who has been serving as interim superintendent since July. Quitman School District Board President William Price cited Holloway’s “central office experience” as a contributing factor to the decision to hire him.

In a recent telephone interview, Holloway said his work with federal programs has brought him into contact with an important area — federal funding — that will play a role in his work as superintendent. Federal funding, he said, “touches every aspect of a child’s education,” and “they key is to know how to use it.”

At the SOCSD, Holloway said, he worked on a number of initiatives with other administrators, including a “Success Academy” designed to help fifth- and sixth-grade students who had been held back regain academic ground.

“We moved them out to a classroom with a smaller setting,” he said, noting that two teachers, working with 13 students at a time, helped students to hone their reading and math skills. A behavioral counselor also contributed, Holloway said.

Holloway said he also led the implementation of an initiative called “The Leader in Me,” which he said is based on Stephen R. Covey’s book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.”

“It’s centered on empowering kids to grow their own learning,” Holloway said. Students, he noted, are tasked with setting “wildly important goals” (WIGs) in both personal and academic realms.

Holloway’s early months in Quitman, he said, will focus on learning about the district and its members.

“The main thing for me is to come in and listen — to listen to all the stakeholders,” he said. He also noted the importance of preparing for the next round of assessments.

Holloway has also worked as a principal in his career, and he mentioned “developing relationships, high expectations and accountability” as key areas of his focus. He recalled, too, the study he conducted on principals’ roles in his doctoral dissertation at the University of Southern Mississippi. He said he studied the leadership styles teachers seek from principals in the “accountability era,” a time when assessments play larger roles than they did years ago.

“They wanted a transformational leader who was charismatic and who could help to ease some of the pressures of testing,” he said.

A transformational leader, Holloway said, focuses on internal motivations — or more deeply rooted motivations than those that come from external rewards. He compared the concept of a transformational leader to that of a manager.

“If you go to dinner with a manager, you come away saying, ‘He’s pretty good,’” Holloway said. “If you go to dinner with a leader, you come away saying, ‘I’m pretty good.’”

It’s a leadership style that ranges beyond the position of principal, Holloway said, and it’s the sort of leader he said he aspires to be in his work as superintendent.