Education Leaders | Evidence Informed School Leadership cover art

Education Leaders | Evidence Informed School Leadership

Education Leaders | Evidence Informed School Leadership

Written by: Shane Leaning | School Leadership & Organisational Development Coach
Listen for free

About this listen

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.

Education Leaders Ltd. Economics Management Management & Leadership
Episodes
  • 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
  • Leading Through Imposter Syndrome | A Conversation with Julia Bialeski

    Leading Through Imposter Syndrome | A Conversation with Julia Bialeski
    Apr 27 2026

    Most school leaders have felt it at some point: that quiet, nagging suspicion that everyone else is more capable, better prepared, and more deserving of the role. Julia Bialeski knows it well. In the spring of 2019, she walked into her first principal job with a smile on her face and panic in her chest, presenting excitement to the world while privately wondering when everyone around her would figure out she wasn't good enough. In this conversation, Julia, educator, district leader, career coach, and author of Leading with Grace, talks honestly about why imposter syndrome hits school leaders so hard, why the loneliness of the job makes it worse, and why the profession's retention crisis has everything to do with the leadership models we put in front of the people coming up behind us.

    Julia shares two practical strategies that have worked for her over years in leadership: a daily learning log that helps you end the day focused on what you gained rather than what you still don't know, and the "smile file", a simple physical collection of notes, cards, and messages that she has carried with her for over a decade and reached for on her hardest days. She also shares the question that changed how she thinks about new roles and challenges: not "am I good enough for this?" but "why not me?" If you've ever sat in a leadership role quietly wondering whether you really belong there, this conversation is worth your time.

    Resources & Links Mentioned:

    Julia Bialeski on LinkedIn

    Leading with Grace by Julia Bialeski


    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
    36 mins
adbl_web_anon_alc_button_suppression_c
No reviews yet