You speak to some realities that most places face.
There is a chapter in The Teaching Gap by Stigler and Hiebert, Chapter 8 that addresses this and especially on pages 138 and 139. We need to find the answers here for our own situation, but they examine the key roles in a district and challenges each of these roles have. It makes me believe that Leadership Teams/Committees/Boards consisting of representatives from the key stakeholders need to guide the way and at the same time honor the leadership of the district. This is challenging and there are fine lines to deal with. I don't exactly know how this could look as each local has a different situation. However, it seems as though the leadership has to be broadly based because of turn over at all levels.