How to Make Change Feel Safe | A Conversation with Paul Halford

Shane Leaning speaks with Paul Halford about his new book "My Educated Life: Lessons from Leading Schools." Paul explores why change in schools is fundamentally a subjective experience, explaining how even the most logical strategic plans can fail when they encounter the reality of people's personal lives and emotional responses. Using a football coaching analogy from his youth, he demonstrates how successful change requires leaders who build trust, allow for honest communication about difficulties, and create safe spaces for dissent and feedback.

The conversation delves into the tension between maintaining legitimacy as a school and pushing boundaries for innovation, using examples like A.S. Neill's radical Summerhill School and the nomadic Think Global School. Paul emphasises that school success is built on relationships characterised by trust, hope, and care, citing research showing that high-trust schools have significantly better success rates when implementing new programmes. He provides practical strategies including monthly one-to-one meetings with staff, annual culture surveys, and creating collaborative approaches to change implementation, while warning that the biggest leadership mistake is allowing trust to erode through poor communication and failure to understand staff experiences.

Links Mentioned:

• My Educated Life: Lessons from Leading Schools by Paul Halford
• The New Meaning of Educational Change by Michael Fullan
• UNESCO Futures of Education Report

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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

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