
Education Leaders LIVE | March Reflections
From Education Leaders | Strategic School Leadership by Shane Leaning | School Leadership & Organisational Development Coach
March 27, 2026 · 49 min · Episode 153
About this episode
Shane and Chris reflect on key themes from recent episodes, discussing leadership, professional development, and the challenges of training effectiveness.
Shane and Chris are back for this month's Education Leaders Live, recording from Shanghai and Newcastle respectively, to unpack some of the biggest themes from recent episodes. The conversation kicks off with the backstory behind Education Leaders itself. How it started as a hobby podcast called Travel Ed, what redundancy taught Shane about building a business, and why the "build it and they shall come" approach is terrible advice for anyone thinking about going independent. From there, they get into Dr Chris Baker's brilliant work on poor proxies for leadership. What does it actually look like to lead well? Is visibility the same as effectiveness? And why did a child once assume Chris Baker was the new headmaster based entirely on his trench coat? They also dig into the CPD problem. Shane shares results from a LinkedIn survey where only 1 out of roughly 100 school leaders said external workshops had genuine impact. That leads to a proper debate about where responsibility sits when training doesn't stick, and what providers should be doing differently. Plus: the guilt of not looking busy, why teachers have the rolliest eyes of any profession, Chris's story about Rob Coe walking…
People in this episode
Host: Shane Leaning
Guest: Chris Baker
Topics covered
- leadership
- professional development
- education
- business
- independence
- training effectiveness
Keywords
- leadership
- professional development
- education podcast
- training
- business
- independence
- LinkedIn survey
- visibility
- effectiveness
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Education Leaders, Travel Ed, LinkedIn
Books & works: Poor Proxies for Leadership, Parent-Driven School Storytelling
More episodes of Education Leaders | Strategic School Leadership
- Beyond 'Research Says' | A Conversation with Andrew Watson · June 8, 2026 · 31 min
- What can leaders learn from cuttlefish? · June 1, 2026 · 9 min
- Education Leaders LIVE | May Reflections · May 28, 2026 · 49 min
- What Schools Get Wrong on Sustainability | A Conversation with Clare Garey · May 25, 2026 · 30 min
- What the Pandemic Did to Student Brains | A Conversation with Nancy Weinstein · May 18, 2026 · 31 min
- Why Saying No Feels So Hard · May 11, 2026 · 25 min
Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the Education Leaders | Strategic School Leadership podcast page.