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Education Leaders | Evidence Informed School Leadership

Education Leaders | Evidence Informed School Leadership

By: Shane Leaning | School Leadership & Organisational Development Coach
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Summary

Strategic school leadership insights for education leaders who want to drive meaningful change and build thriving school communities.


What if the most powerful leadership strategies were hiding in plain sight? Education Leaders uncovers the evidence-based approaches that separate truly effective school leaders from the rest. Through compelling interviews and strategic deep-dives, organisational coach Shane Leaning reveals the real challenges facing today's education leaders, and the practical solutions that actually work.


Every other Tuesday, discover how renowned educators and thought leaders tackle school improvement, staff development, and cultural transformation. You'll learn actionable strategies you can implement immediately to build confidence in your leadership and create lasting impact in your school community.


On alternate weeks, Shane delivers focused episodes that address the leadership challenges you face daily: managing diverse teams, driving innovation, building organisational identity, and implementing sustainable change. Each episode offers clear, research-backed frameworks for developing your leadership capacity.


Whether you're a department head questioning your next move, an assistant principal navigating complexities of a big team, or a superintendent driving district-wide change, Education Leaders provides the strategic insights you need to lead with confidence.


Consistently ranked #1 schools podcast in Education category across multiple regions.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Episodes
  • Why Saying No Feels So Hard

    Why Saying No Feels So Hard
    May 11 2026

    Saying yes is one of the most common habits among school leaders, and most of the time it happens automatically, without conscious thought. In this solo episode, Shane reflects on a conversation with a fellow educator that revealed they shared the exact same challenge: both had said yes far too much, and both were feeling the weight of it. Drawing on Adam Grant's Give and Take and the recent work of Cornell researcher Sunita Sah, Shane looks at why school leaders are wired to say yes, four specific psychological reasons that drive that habit, and the real costs it creates for your team, your relationships, and your own visibility as a leader.

    You'll learn how to replace the automatic yes with what Shane calls the trade-off response, a four-step approach that gives your boss more information rather than a flat refusal. Shane walks through the steps, acknowledge the priority, make your current load visible, name the trade-off, and hand the decision back, with real examples from his own career, including one during COVID when even the trade-off response didn't get him off the hook. If you've ever walked away from a conversation thinking "why did I just say yes to that?", this episode is the honest, practical starting point you've been looking for.

    Resources & Links Mentioned:

    Adam Grant's Give and Take

    Sunita Sah's Defy

    Shane Leaning's Education Leaders Intensive


    Episode Partners

    International Curriculum Association

    Sisi

    Join Shane's Intensive Leadership Programme at educationleaders.co/intensive




    Shane Leaning, an organisational coach based in Shanghai, supports school leaders globally. Passionate about empowment, he is the author of the best-selling 'Change Starts Here.' Shane is a leading educational voice in the UK, Asia and around the world.


    You can find Shane on LinkedIn and Bluesky. or shaneleaning.com

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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    25 mins
  • Heads Who Lead Beyond School | A Conversation with Chris Passey and Sam Crome

    Heads Who Lead Beyond School | A Conversation with Chris Passey and Sam Crome
    May 4 2026

    What does it really take to step into public thought leadership as a headteacher and what do consultants and trust leaders get wrong when they walk into schools? In this episode, Shane is joined by Chris Passey, Headteacher at Kimichi School and co-host of the Coaching Unpacked podcast series, and Sam Crome, Interim Headteacher and Director of Education for Xavier Catholic Education Trust, for an honest conversation about professional voice, courage, and the assumptions that undermine good support. Both guests have built a presence beyond their schools through writing, podcasting, and public commentary, and they share what it actually took to get there.

    You'll hear Chris reflect on the moment he deleted a tweet and "ran away and hid under a rock" and what he'd do differently now. Sam makes a compelling case that assumptions are the death of good advice, drawing on his coaching training to explain why curious questions outperform confident recommendations every time. If you're a school leader wondering whether your voice has value, or a consultant wanting to support schools more effectively, this conversation will give you something genuinely useful to take back to your desk.

    Resources & Links Mentioned:

    Chris Passey on LinkedIn

    Sam Crome on LinkedIn

    Kimichi School

    The Power of Teams by Sam Crome

    Succeeding as a Deputy Head by Chris Passey


    Episode Partners

    International Leaders Conference

    Sisi

    Join Shane's Intensive Leadership Programme at educationleaders.co/intensive




    Shane Leaning, an organisational coach based in Shanghai, supports school leaders globally. Passionate about empowment, he is the author of the best-selling 'Change Starts Here.' Shane is a leading educational voice in the UK, Asia and around the world.


    You can find Shane on LinkedIn and Bluesky. or shaneleaning.com

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
    Show More Show Less
    31 mins
  • Education Leaders LIVE | April Reflections

    Education Leaders LIVE | April Reflections
    May 1 2026
    April was a packed month on the Education Leaders podcast. Five episodes, four guests, and a thread that quietly ran through all of them: the value of small, listened-to, incremental change.Chris Scorer joined me for our monthly live show to make sense of it all. Here's what landed.Listening before leading. Richard Wheadon's episode on his leadership journey hit hardest here. Richard's been honest about arriving at a new school full of confidence in approaches that had worked before, only to find the school wasn't ready to hear them. Chris reflected on his own version of that story from his deputy head days. The lesson Richard pulls out, that the relationship has to flip and you're the one who needs to understand them first, is something most leaders quote at interview but find genuinely hard once the pressure to deliver kicks in.Cognitive load isn't only a classroom concept. Meg Lee's episode on the science of leading drew the parallel cleanly. We'd never overload our students the way we routinely overload our teachers. Chris had sharper questions about where standardisation tips over into removing teacher agency. There's a real risk that well-intentioned alignment becomes content delivery dressed up as consistency.The story I shared that fell apart in real time. I told one from a large primary school I worked in years ago, where they standardised planning to save teacher time. Some teachers delivered the lessons rigidly. Some scrapped them and rebuilt from scratch. Only a handful actually did what the school intended. Good intention, awful side effect. Wise leadership might have started with a consultation rather than an assumption.Curiosity as a North Star. Melati Wijsen, founder of Bye Bye Plastic Bags and Youthtopia, took us across to the Netherlands and Bali. Chris flagged the bit that surprised both of us: Melati's gratitude to teachers who didn't let her off the hook, even when she was already running a charity in her teens. There's a real lesson in how Green School Bali holds structure and freedom together. Her book, Change Starts Now, came out a month before mine and happens to be the same colour, which I'm still slightly bitter about.Vulnerability isn't optional. Julia Bialeski's episode on leading through imposter syndrome went live on Tuesday and is already the most downloaded of the month. Chris and I both copped to feeling it ourselves. Julia's framing of the panic, the public face, and the modelling cost we pay when we hide it from staff and students ties straight back to Richard's journey and to my solo episode on post-decision doubt. The thread underneath all of it: if we can't sit with not knowing, we end up performing certainty instead of building it.Episodes mentionedMeg Lee | The Science of Leading: shaneleaning.com/podcast/154Richard Wheadon | The Danger of Getting Comfortable: shaneleaning.com/podcast/155. Richard's book Learning Habits (Routledge) is well worth your time.Melati Wijsen | How Schools Can Grow Young Changemakers: shaneleaning.com/podcast/156. Melati's book Change Starts Now collects 100 lessons from over a decade on the frontline.Solo | The Science Behind Post-Decision Doubt: shaneleaning.com/podcast/157Julia Bialeski | Leading Through Imposter Syndrome: shaneleaning.com/podcast/158. Julia is also the author of Leading with Grace.Join us liveWe do this on the last Thursday of every month at educationleaders.live. Come and bring your questions. The live chat is genuinely the best part of the show.Join Shane's Intensive Leadership Programme at educationleaders.co/intensiveShane Leaning, an organisational coach based in Shanghai, supports school leaders globally. Passionate about empowment, he is the author of the best-selling 'Change Starts Here.' Shane is a leading educational voice in the UK, Asia and around the world.You can find Shane on LinkedIn and Bluesky. or shaneleaning.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
    Show More Show Less
    47 mins
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