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When Alex Fairlamb describes differentiation as having suffered a "lethal mutation", she means the tiered worksheets and pre-set tasks that quietly cap what children can achieve. Alex, Senior Advisor for Inclusive Teaching at Laidlaw Schools Trust and co-author of The Scaffolding Effect, explains how labels, unconscious bias and a flawed version of Bloom's taxonomy push vulnerable students towards lower expectations while piling extra workload onto teachers. If you lead teaching and learning in an international school, you will likely recognise the pattern in your own classrooms. You'll learn what adaptive teaching looks like for a child who struggles with reading comprehension, from anticipating barriers before the lesson to checking understanding every two to five minutes and adding or removing scaffolds as you go. Alex and Shane discuss why interventions should supplement the curriculum rather than replace it, and why a music A level specification with no women in it shows what a narrow curriculum can do. For leaders wondering where to start, Alex makes the case for a three to five year professional learning plan over a different initiative every week. This conversation will change how you think about equity in your school. Resources & Links Mentioned: Alex Fairlamb's The Scaffolding Effect Alex Fairlamb's LinkedIn 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. 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. We are a proud member of the Education Leaders podcast network. For more great education shows, visit educationleaders.co/network/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Leadership interviews terrify plenty of capable teachers, and Shane admits he is one of them. So Orla Dempsey, a coach who helps teachers secure leadership positions, coaches him live in this episode. She starts with a reframe Shane calls huge: when a question asks “what would you do if...”, answer in the past tense and tell a story about something you have already done. If you are preparing for a school leadership interview, or helping a colleague prepare, you can use her tools straight away. In this archived episode, you’ll learn how Orla teaches the STAR technique (situation, task, action, result), including her “clam” image and her rule that the result should take 17 words or less. Shane has a go at a live mock answer about coaching a colleague whose long emails annoyed his team, and Orla shows how a list of verbs makes it sharper. You’ll also hear how to put figures behind your impact, how to read a school’s needs from a principal’s address and photographs, and why speaking from the heart beats speaking from the head when a setback comes up. Orla’s closing message is worth hearing before your next interview: not being the right fit for one school does not mean you are not good enough. Resources & Links Mentioned: Orla Dempsey's LinkedIn Orla Dempsey's website 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. 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. We are a proud member of the Education Leaders podcast network. For more great education shows, visit educationleaders.co/network/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A teacher hands in their planning late for the third time, and you know they are dealing with a difficult situation at home. Insist on the deadline and you may ask for something they cannot manage, but keep extending it and colleagues end up carrying the load while pupils’ preparation suffers. This solo episode of school leadership coaching looks at what to do when two of your values pull in opposite directions, using Rushworth Kidder’s idea of “right versus right” dilemmas. It matters for any leader who has felt torn between standards and compassion and defaulted to whichever response felt most familiar. Shane walks through five practical moves: name both concerns and what each one protects, gather the facts, look for another route, choose and acknowledge the cost, then rehearse the conversation. You’ll hear what “standards” and “compassion” might mean in the late planning example, and why a temporary arrangement with a clear review date can create room for both. Shane also shares how he slipped on his own delegation when family visited from the UK and his self-care suffered. The episode ends with a simple if-then commitment you can use this week, so you can press play and leave with something to try before your next difficult conversation. Resources & Links Mentioned: Giving Voice to Values, Mary Gentile’s approach to acting on your values 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. 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. We are a proud member of the Education Leaders podcast network. For more great education shows, visit educationleaders.co/network/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dr Andrew Miller, Academic Principal at Beijing International Bilingual Academy, explains what going slow really looks like for a school leader and why "maybe don't" could be the most useful phrase you say all year. His career spans Washington State's Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, Singapore American School and Shanghai American School, so he has seen how pressure to move fast plays out in very different systems. There is also a story behind this episode: Shane's audio failed to record, so you hear Andrew's answers as they were given on the day, with short bridge lines from Shane to set up each question. You'll learn how to tell deliberate slowness apart from avoidance or a loss of nerve, and how Andrew resets his own sense of urgency on the days when he feels he hasn't done enough. He also covers how to let staff see your thinking without it sounding like excuses, and where the line sits between useful vulnerability and venting. Shane closes with three practical steps to try this week, starting with writing down what would happen if you didn't launch that next initiative. If everyone around you is waiting for you to act, this conversation gives you a way to pause with confidence. Resources & Links Mentioned: Washington State Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction Singapore American School Shanghai American School Andrew's LinkedIn Episode Partners International Curriculum Association Join Shane's Intensive Leadership Programme at educationleaders.co/intensive Shane Leaning, an organisational coach based in Shanghai, supports school leaders globally. 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. We are a proud member of the Education Leaders podcast network. For more great education shows, visit educationleaders.co/network/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Every month, Shane Leaning and Chris Scora sit down to unpack what has come up on the Education Leaders podcast, and this live catch-up covers two of the season's most talked-about conversations. The main event is a robust back-and-forth on Claire Badger's episode, "Do Schools Really Kill Creativity?", where Chris admits he needed three listens to get past his initial discomfort with Claire's certainty before finding real common ground. They also revisit Jim Knight's "Stop Telling Teachers What to Do" and discuss why his coaching-over-directing approach has struggled to gain traction in UK schools despite making obvious sense on paper. You'll hear why Chris pushed back on Claire's definition of creativity as needing to be both "novel and useful," and why he worries that scaffolding can tip into constraint when applied under classroom time pressure. Shane and Chris also work through the tension between aspiration and pragmatism in education, using the IB's diploma programme as a case study, and close with reflections on Jim Knight's ideas about listening, agency and the "helpful bully" trap leaders can fall into. If you've ever wondered whether structure helps or hinders creative thinking in your classroom, this conversation will give you plenty to weigh up. Resources & Links Mentioned: Education Leaders Podcast Network Do Schools Really Kill Creativity? with Claire Badger Stop Telling Teachers What to Do with Jim Knight What Can Leaders Learn from Architects? with Phil Idle Britain's Strictest Head Teacher with Katharine Birbalsingh 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. 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. We are a proud member of the Education Leaders podcast network. For more great education shows, visit educationleaders.co/network/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Claire Badger, a former research scientist and science teacher, disagrees with one of the most popular ideas in education: that schools kill creativity. Drawing on the cognitive science in her book, she argues that creativity has a clear definition (something must be both new and useful) and that most school approaches to it miss the second half. If your school celebrates its art displays, orchestra and project weeks as proof of creativity, this conversation will make you question what those activities are actually building. It matters for international school leaders in particular, where inquiry-based and project-based learning sit at the heart of the curriculum. You'll hear why a child's paperclip-spaceship idea is imaginative but not creative, and why a group of students told to write about "Colin, a red-haired boy missing a toe" produced better stories than those given a blank page. Claire shares her own "sustainable product" project day, which ended with a perpetual motion machine, and explains why cross-curricular projects often teach less than leaders hope. You'll also pick up practical first steps, from loosening the grip of data drops and Key Stage 3 exams to changing just one element of a lesson, such as asking for a video explanation instead of pages of written calculations. Shane and Claire even compare two very different schools and ask which one is more likely to produce creative graduates. Resources & Links Mentioned: Ken Robinson's TED talk "Do Schools Kill Creativity?" The Double Diamond design process (Design Council) World Economic Forum Future of Jobs Report Claire Badger on LinkedIn Claire Badger's Creativity for Teachers: A Cognitive Science Approach (The Teacher CPD Academy) 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. 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. We are a proud member of the Education Leaders podcast network. For more great education shows, visit educationleaders.co/network/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Shane Leaning has spent years building the Education Leaders podcast into a trusted source for practical leadership strategies. In this special launch episode, he's joined live by the hosts of four other education podcasts to unveil something new: the Education Leaders Podcast Network. What started as a conversation between Adam Kohlbeck and Chris Passey about wanting all their favourite education podcasts in one place has become a five-show network, each independently produced but bound by shared quality standards and a common goal of broadening the conversation across the sector. You'll hear directly from the hosts of EduPulse, Beyond the Status Quo, Teaching on Purpose, Coaching Done Well and Coaching Unpacked, and Education Leaders Live, each explaining what makes their show distinct. Shane and his co-hosts discuss everything from the "kintsugi" philosophy behind Beyond the Status Quo to the new podcast studio behind Teaching on Purpose, and Adam Kohlbeck shares the same-day publication of his book on coaching for adaptive expertise. If you want to know where to find practical, high-quality education content from voices across the globe, this episode is your map to the whole network. Resources & Links Mentioned: Education Leaders with Shane Leaning Coaching Done Well x Coaching Unpacked with Shane Leaning, Jim Thompson, Adam Kohlbeck, Chris Passey and Sarah Cottinghatt EduPulse with Adam Kohlbeck and Chris Passey Teaching on Purpose with Chiltern Learning Trust Beyond the Status Quo with Kathryn Gorman and Tamara Zaple Rolfs Education Leaders Podcast Network — full feed 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. 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. We are a proud member of the Education Leaders podcast network. For more great education shows, visit educationleaders.co/network/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Shane opens this episode by naming a habit most school leaders share: telling their team "my door is always open," then wondering why staff still hesitate to bring problems to them. He argues these phrases feel generous but give people nothing concrete to act on, leaving new starters and existing team members to guess how you actually want to be approached. Drawing on a 2013 field study of over 600 call centre employees, Shane shows how a single day of onboarding, focused on staff rather than company values, cut turnover by nearly a third within six months. You'll learn three specific things to tell your team in your very first meeting this year: how to reach you and how quickly you'll genuinely reply, the specific situations you want flagged before they escalate, and how you behave under pressure so people stop having to work it out by trial and error. Shane also shares his own example of going quiet under stress and warns against the two ways this approach usually falls apart. If you want a practical, low-cost way to replace vague reassurances with something your team can use, this episode gives you the exact script. Resources & Links Mentioned: Cable, Gino & Staats (2013) study on employee onboarding and identity 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. 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. We are a proud member of the Education Leaders podcast network. For more great education shows, visit educationleaders.co/network/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode explores what happens when school leaders stop starting a building project with a room count and start with a harder question about who their students are becoming. Phil, a Director at EIW Architects and past International Chair of the Association for Learning Environments, has spent more than thirty years watching how classrooms, corridors and timetables quietly shape behaviour, belonging and identity. If you are planning a new build, an expansion, or simply rethinking how your existing spaces reflect your school's values, this conversation offers a genuinely different starting point. You'll learn why treating a design brief as a fixed checklist can trap a school in yesterday's thinking, and how Nanjing International School flipped that process by writing a "Dear Architect" document about beliefs rather than room specifications. Phil shares the story of a project in rural Tanzania that turned his team from experts into learners, and explains why risk avoidance has quietly become a measure of "responsible" leadership at the expense of better design. Shane and Phil also discuss why architecture and school leadership are really the same discipline in disguise, both shaping how humans learn, belong and flourish together. If you've ever wondered what your school's corridors are secretly saying about what you believe, this conversation will change how you look at your own building. Resources & Links Mentioned: EIW Architects Philip Idle on LinkedIn Sarah Williams Goldhagen's short film "What Design Can Do" Jay Shetty's "On Purpose" podcast Dr Etienne Wenger-Trayner on communities of practice Association for Learning Environments (A4LE) 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. 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. We are a proud member of the Education Leaders podcast network. For more great education shows, visit educationleaders.co/network/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week, we're revisiting a favourite from the archives. Shane sits down with Katharine Birbalsingh, founder and headmistress of Michaela Community School, the free school in a converted Wembley office block that has posted the highest Progress 8 scores in England for three consecutive years. Katharine explains why she's never once used an agenda in a meeting, why simplicity beats choice in almost every part of school life, and why she believes real autonomy only works when staff genuinely own what they're building together. You'll hear the ice cream cone analogy Katharine uses to explain why schools quietly become too complicated over time, why she deliberately warns candidates about the parts of Michaela they might not like before hiring them, and how she applies the logic of the dating world to setting standards with parents and pupils alike. Whether or not you agree with her approach, this conversation will push you to think harder about what genuine conviction in leadership actually looks like. Resources & Links Mentioned: Michaela Community School The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Teachers, edited by Katharine Birbalsingh The Schools We Need and Why We Don't Have Them by E.D. Hirsch 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. 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. We are a proud member of the Education Leaders podcast network. For more great education shows, visit educationleaders.co/network/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When a teacher in South Carolina hit 86% on a goal she had set for herself, her school moved off the state's lowest-performing list and the state department called to ask how she had done it. In this episode, Jim Knight, founder of the Instructional Coaching Group and the person who coined the term "instructional coaching", explains why that result had almost nothing to do with the teaching strategy involved. Jim has spent thirty years researching professional learning at the University of Kansas Center for Research on Learning, and he brings that research to a frank conversation about why so much well-meaning coaching quietly deprofessionalises the very teachers it is meant to support. You'll learn why Jim treats every coaching relationship as a partnership rather than an instruction, and why even experienced, well-intentioned leaders can slide into telling without noticing they are doing it. Jim walks Shane through the four conversations that move a teacher from watching video of their own classroom to setting a measurable, student-focused goal, using a real example of a teacher whose exit-ticket scores climbed once she and her coach chose cooperative learning strategies together. Along the way, he explains why Richard Boyatzis describes bad goal-setting as being a "helpful bully", and why the satisfaction of giving advice is not the same thing as doing right by the people you lead. If you have ever wondered whether your instinct to fix things for your staff is helping them or holding them back, this conversation offers a clear, research-backed alternative. Resources & Links Mentioned: Jim Knight's Instructional Coaching Group Jim Knight on LinkedIn Jim Knight's books, including Instructional Coaching and The Impact Cycle Coaching Conversations podcast with Jim Knight Daniel Pink's "Drive" Self-determination theory (Deci and Ryan) Miller and Rollnick's work on motivational interviewing Michael Bungay Stanier's "The Coaching Habit" Bryan Goodwin and McREL's "The New Classroom Instruction That Works" Marzano's "Classroom Instruction That Works" (McREL) Spencer Kagan's cooperative learning structures Learning Forward (formerly the National Staff Development Council) 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. 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. We are a proud member of the Education Leaders podcast network. For more great education shows, visit educationleaders.co/network/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ever sat in a meeting watching one person take over while everyone else goes quiet, and had no idea how to step in? Shane tackles exactly that in this solo episode. He unpacks why dominant speakers do more than annoy the room: research on "hidden profile" problems shows that when one person carries the conversation, groups are far more likely to land on the wrong decision, because the quietest person in the room is often the one holding the missing piece. Shane explains why most leaders freeze in this moment and what actually stops them from stepping in. You'll learn a four-step technique called the redirect: naming the person, acknowledging something specific they said, bridging with "and" rather than "but," and inviting a named colleague into the conversation. Shane breaks down why each step matters, including the psychology behind starting with someone's name and why generic acknowledgement backfires. He also covers the timing judgement call of when to step in, and how to handle it differently when someone's length is driven by distress rather than dominance. If you lead meetings of any kind, this is a tool you can use next week. 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. 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. We are a proud member of the Education Leaders podcast network. For more great education shows, visit educationleaders.co/network/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ask a teacher how many people looked at their exercise books last year and you might be surprised by the number. Tyrone Ruth counted his: fifteen different people, in a single academic year. In this episode, Tyrone, a teacher-turned-senior-leader with experience across the UK and the Middle East, unpacks what he calls the hidden curriculum of surveillance: the quiet network of book looks, learning walks, data drops and digital check-ins that most schools treat as completely normal. He argues this constant, low-level monitoring is doing real damage to teachers, even when no single leader intends any harm. You'll hear why Tyrone thinks there's a critical difference between professional accountability and a surveillance culture rooted in mistrust, and how that distinction changes the way a school should ask questions of its staff. Tyrone shares the story of an eleven-page marking policy, explains why teachers end up producing evidence rather than teaching, and uses Bentham's Panopticon to describe how simply feeling watched changes behaviour. Shane and Tyrone also get into what school leaders can actually do about it, starting with a simple but uncomfortable exercise: listing everything you currently monitor and asking who it's really for. Resources & Links Mentioned: Tyrone Ruth on LinkedIn Panopticon (Jeremy Bentham) — Britannica 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. 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. We are a proud member of the Education Leaders podcast network. For more great education shows, visit educationleaders.co/network/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is a bonus episode. Every last Thursday of the month, Shane sits down with Chris Scorer to pick apart the themes from the month's podcast guests, the stuff that stuck with them, the bits they disagreed on, and where it all leads. If you listen to the main feed, this is your chance to hear those conversations chewed over properly. It's a quieter one this month, summer holidays for a good chunk of the northern hemisphere, and Chris is back after an eventful July of his own. But two short episodes turned into a properly meaty conversation, and one thread runs right through it: we do things instinctively in the classroom that we somehow forget to do when we're leading adults. They start with defensive teachers. Chris flips Shane's original question on its head, not "have you had a defensive teacher?" but "have you been one, and why does the system make us feel that way?" That leads somewhere useful. Defensiveness isn't a character flaw, it's natural, and often it's a symptom of a place that's short on psychological safety rather than a problem with the person in front of you. Shane digs into the practical side, three-point communication and the side-by-side effect, why a conversation in a car feels easier than one across a desk, and why British parliament sits the way it does. There's a lovely story about a CEO who solved everything with a pen and a bit of paper. And a genuinely practical bit for leaders: what do you actually do when you've tried all the right things and the defensiveness still won't shift? The Zaretta Hammond episode gives them plenty to sit with. Her point that learning is meant to be messy, the liminal spaces, the trapeze hanging in mid-air, and the way our results pressure tempts us to over-scaffold and quietly rob students of the struggle they need. Chris connects it to leadership: we promote strong administrators who like their bookshelves ordered by colour, then wonder why nobody feels safe to make mistakes. Shane makes the case for Zaretta as someone who holds the complexity, neither camp in the tired progressive-versus-traditional split. And there's the first pancake, which is always pants, and what that tells us about growth. The best tangent is about collaboration. Why does teaching leave people so alone? Chris brings up the group planning built into Chinese domestic schools. Shane picks it up with Shanghai maths, why importing the teacher without the conditions was an expensive flop, and how healthcare has proper supervision while teaching makes do with line management and a PD slot. They land on staff room culture, professional supervision, and Shane's argument that the problem was never the idea, it's the system that leaves teachers no time to use it. They close on the big one. Education second only to medicine, until someone in a Bucharest audience of 500 gently corrected Chris: education matters more, because medicine is about the here and now, and education is about the here, now and ever after. Worth the listen for that line alone. Episodes mentioned in this conversation:How to Defuse Defensive Teachers (solo episode) → /podcast/167/Management Mastery (Poppy Nobes) → /podcast/168/Rethinking Equity Through Learning Science (Zaretta Hammond) → /podcast/169/10 Million Views Later (Tom Sherrington, a rerun pick from Skyler Rose) → /podcast/170/What are Leadership Levers? (solo episode) → /podcast/171/Coming up next month:Tyrone Ruth on how accountability can freeze a school in its tracks, and the brilliant Jim Knight of the Instructional Coaching Group on getting back to basics with instructional coaching. Plus a few solo episodes. Keep an eye on the feed. Join us live:We broadcast Education Leaders Live on the last Thursday of every month on LinkedIn and YouTube, or at educationleaders.live. Come and bring your thoughts, your pushback, and your own stories from the field. That's what the show's for. Join Shane's Intensive Leadership Programme at educationleaders.co/intensive Shane Leaning, an organisational coach based in Shanghai, supports school leaders globally. 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. We are a proud member of the Education Leaders podcast network. For more great education shows, visit educationleaders.co/network/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Seventeen weeks into writing a weekly newsletter on LinkedIn, Shane has landed on a simple but powerful idea: leadership levers. This episode explains what makes a lever different from a project or a habit, why it has to be small enough to do tomorrow morning without telling anyone, and why it has to live inside something already in your week, like a meeting or a handover. Drawing on John Sweller's research on cognitive load and Stephen Rogelberg's studies on meetings, Shane makes the case that most leadership problems aren't solved by trying harder, but by placing effort somewhere better. You'll learn why a single sentence sent before a meeting can prevent hours of follow-up confusion, and why two minutes at the end of a meeting assigning names to actions can stop decisions turning into vague memories. Shane also shares how learning a framework for difficult conversations freed up enough mental space to actually listen better, rather than working out the opening line from scratch every time. If you're looking for practical, repeatable moves rather than another big initiative, this episode gives you a way to think about where to place your effort for maximum return. Resources & Links Mentioned: Education Leaders Intensive programme 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. 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. We are a proud member of the Education Leaders podcast network. For more great education shows, visit educationleaders.co/network/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.