Poor Proxies for Leadership | A Conversation with Chris Baker

About this episode

This episode discusses the concept of poor proxies for leadership with Chris Baker, emphasizing the need for better evaluation methods in educational leadership.

How do we truly know if someone is a good leader? If your school relies on visible presence, constant busyness, or even a certain "look," you might be measuring the wrong things. In this thought-provoking episode, Shane is joined by experienced educator and leadership development specialist, Chris Baker, to explore the concept of 'poor proxies' for leadership. Inspired by Rob Coe's work on poor proxies for learning, Chris explains how schools often mistake correlated behaviours for the causal impact of effective leadership, potentially undermining leader well-being and organisational success.   You’ll learn to identify common poor proxies like visibility, busyness, and confidence, and discover a more impactful framework for evaluation centred on two questions: "How does this leader make people feel?" and "What does this leader enable people to do?" Chris provides a practical, immediate action plan, advising you to audit your school’s leadership frameworks, recruitment processes, and development programmes for hidden proxies. If you want to move beyond superficial metrics and cultivate leadership that genuinely empowers your team, this conversation is an essential starting…

People in this episode

Host: Shane Leaning

Guest: Chris Baker

Topics covered

• leadership evaluation
• poor proxies for leadership
• educational leadership
• leader well-being
• organizational success
• leadership frameworks

Keywords

• leadership
• evaluation
• poor proxies
• educational leadership
• leader well-being
• organizational success
• visibility
• busyness
• confidence

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Evidence-Based Education, International Curriculum Association, Teaching Walkthrus, educationleaders.co

Books & works: Rob Coe's work

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