Education Leaders | The Chart-Topping School Leadership Podcast

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.