The Danger of Getting Comfortable | A Conversation with Richard Wheadon

What happens when you move from a school where everything just works? To one where, well, you have to build it all from scratch. Well, today's guest found out the hard way, and what he discovered about leadership, about ego, and about the power of being willing to be wrong, is going to genuinely stay with you. Hey, I'm Shane Leaning. Welcome to Education Leaders, the chat topping international podcast for leaders in schools around the world. I'm an author and organizational coach, and in this show I bring you practical ideas, and on this conversation to help you lead with confidence and clarity. This episode is supported by the International and Crickulum Association and Teaching Walkthroughs. Stay tuned to let more. My guest today is Richard Whedon. He has a lot of experience as a teacher and senior leader. He works as a school improvement partner right now in the UK, and he is author of the best sounding work, Learning Habits, How to Develop Independent Successful Learners. He's spoken widely at conferences in the UK and internationally, and I promise you his story today of going from a confident leader to humbling moments that actually changed everything. He's one new going to want to hear. Let's jump in. I started my career in London, and I was really fortunate to work in a really great teaching school. So the school had lots of mechanisms in place to support me. I remember my first year there, so a temporary house because it was my keynote speaker in the school. And so that was my start to education. Having that, to me, it was normal to have that kind of experience. I was coached by a deputy head from year two to talk about what direction I wanted to go in in terms of my leadership. I hadn't really thought about that. I just wanted to become a teacher to start with. I wasn't even thinking about leadership, but that coaching made me think about what type of leader I wanted to be. So I had that, I had an inspiring middle-eater programme. I then became a leader, I then started supporting other schools in our network. And that happened really, really naturally kind of the first 10 years of my career. So we moved out of London to kind of the North West because my wife is from this part of the country. And it was kind of really a baptism of fire. It was a real surprise because I was really comfortable and I had this network of people that if I had a problem, I would just go to the right person I would talk it through. And it was really normal. So suddenly going up north from being a leader in a brand new school and you're setting, not knowing the culture, because I'd never talked about culture, because we had a good one. So when you have a good culture in a school, no one has to use the word, because it is what it is. It's been formed in the background. So suddenly going to a school and thinking, "This isn't the same." People aren't clamoring for professional development the way that we were in London. There was no such thing as an aspiring middle-eater program. And if I'd created one, is there even the interest in it? So to move from the school where I was comfortable, I was developed to a school where I was suddenly the person having to create this culture was kind of really, really surprising and challenging. But I slowly but surely started to mimic the things that I was doing in London in this new school and some things worked and some things didn't. And almost wondering why they didn't. I remember having an argument with my head teacher in my school in London once. And I said, "Why do we always start every September with many whiteboards?" Like, "Why every year do you get the many whiteboards out in the hall with 80 staff?" I said, "I'm sick of them." "We all use them. We all know what a many whiteboard is." And actually suddenly going to the Northwest and we didn't have any whiteboards. And so not even realizing that the reason it was so successful is because we did know what we stood for as a school. That assessment for learning was part of the culture. There was so ingrained that it was expected that's what we would do every September. You know, even though some of us knew what we were doing. And so, going from that to going to a school where there wasn't a consistent approach. There wasn't a "what does teaching really look like at the school?" Everyone was doing whatever they wanted. And it was all this individual approaches. So that was a really, really challenge. And so, going from the comfort of being grown as a leader to somewhere alien is really, really difficult to start off. It's really interesting. It's reminding me of a few conversations that I've had on this podcast actually Richard. But the idea that we can get in our comfort zone or maybe just kind of get in a place where we just take for granted what's happening in front of us. And I think it speaks to sometimes the complexity of invisible leadership that actually takes place. And if you're doing something well, the cultures develop well. It feels invisible. It feels intuitive. It feels like everyone is just intuitively moving in this direction. But it takes you moving outside of that spot to kind of realise, wow, actually, this was more purposeful than I'd had realised. Yeah. And I think if I look at my understanding of mental models and things like that that developed over the last couple of years, that I didn't probably have a deeper mental model of leadership, as I said, I was just going with the flow. I was just following everyone else in this direction. You know, this greatness that I didn't even know that it was. And not maybe stopping at times to unpick why I was making decisions. Because I was making them because everyone else around me was. And so suddenly going somewhere where, hell, I'm in it, I don't know where the direction of this school is. I don't know what we do. I have to create this. It was a really, really hard transition. So I've got a few things that come in my mind of previous guests. So one was when I spoke with Catherine Burball saying actually about the Michaela school. And it sounds like a lot of things, again, they just do a lot of things on repetition to get that culture embedded. And so you just take it for granted, which I think is why it can sometimes surprise people who go from a school like that into another school and go, why is this just not working? Yeah, I mean, I'll give you one example that really shocked me in my first couple of weeks is that so there's a certain subject where there was some inconsistencies. And I was looking at bits and pieces and I sent them an email. I asked them five or six questions. You know, what are your thoughts on this? What are your thoughts on this? Trying to understand where the decision making to come from. And there was one point that I felt I had to change. There was something that I felt was going wrong. It was around assessment. And I didn't think that assessment was fit for purpose. There was issues with it. And so on this one point, I kind of said, what are your thoughts on this? By the way, I think we need to change this. And that was at an email. And my reply was, basically, an email called me a dictator for suggesting that something needed to be changed. And I thought to myself, well, hang on a minute, I've asked for your opinion six or seven times. I've saw this one bullet point as just that. But clearly to this other person, they didn't. It's like when you do the feedback, two stars, and all they remember is the negative feedback. All they've highlighted is this one thing where I've criticized what are their systems. And basically, I'm really angry about it. And one thing that I found really, really hard when I moved is that I kept passionately about students. And that I think shined through in my work. But in London, I had been there years. So everybody knew that. So if I went to someone and said, I think this needs to change, they know that's coming from a place where I really care about the kids and I feel I've got the evidence that this change is going to help kids. But you go to a new school and they don't know that. They don't know what my purpose is. They don't know why I'm asking them to change something. They might think that I'm just trying to climb the ladder to head shape on it. And I don't care about that. I'm just making myself look good. You know, so that all came into play where I just got not going away with. But my reputation preceded me because I'd been there so long and people knew that I cared. So I didn't even think about this email when I'm sending off. I think how someone's going to think about this one bullet point that I've made. And in hindsight, it was a real mistake that I made early on as a leader there to try and change things without knowing who I was. And that's why, you know, your book, The First Bit About Connecting, I had definitely missed when I moved to the Northwest because I always had good connections with people that I'd built over years. I hadn't really thought about how important it was in a new setting to make those connections to listen first. It took me longer to make the changes I needed because I probably didn't listen to start. I went in thinking I'd been in a better school than this in Verly Commerce. You know, we were really successful. So I'm just going to come up here and tell you what we did. And that was a real mistake of mine. And I thought I'd got everyone on board, but I did it the way too fast. I did it faster than I should have. I hadn't truly listened to all of the voices around me. And that just slowed down the process to the change that I wanted to kind of quit. We got there in the end, and that was great, but it was a slower start. And I wanted, and in hindsight, I would have definitely tried to make that connection more with the middle leaders of the school before I started to try and make the change. And I think that's because I thought they would just know that my changes were pupil-centered. Yeah, and they didn't know that. Thank you for sharing so vulnerable, actually, Richard. And I know many listeners, and myself included, are going to be just seeing themselves in that story, because I think we've all got those kind of stories where we had an assumption in our head because we'd had previous success. You go into a new context. You try to do something, and it just doesn't work. And I think we've all had the experience on the other side, as well, of having a new leader come into our school, and to see them almost kind of trying to recreate what they had before, and feeling frustrated in that sense, too. Yeah. So you've also had external challenge to your work, as well. And a bit of prominent challenge. We wanted the previous guests on the podcast, Rosemar Gill. I think you had some feedback on your work. I would love to unpick a little bit about that, and what that taught you as well. Yeah. So it was five years in now at this school, as a leader, where I felt like we'd made real change. And I was in a really happy place where where the teaching and learning policy was, or the teaching it like in the school, often had come in and recognised and praised the teaching and learning in the school, this set it was ever done's informed. So I was kind of buzzing at this point, thinking, "I've done all these good things, I'm in a really good place." And I was kind of at this crossroads, as well. What do I do now? Because I had almost recreated all the things that I thought were good and it was going well. And so at that point I was like, where's my next step? So this is when I joined Twitter. I was really late to the Twitter world. Partly because, as I said, I'd moved up North and I was so busy trying to do things there that I didn't have any time for the external voices or the noise or anything that came with social stuff. So I joined Twitter a couple of years ago and I was like, well, I'm going to see what's out there because I want to hear from these other voices. And Wasmigill put it to me out saying, who's got the perfect teaching and learning policy? You know, I want to see it. And so I arrogantly was like, me, here we go. And I think that about eight followers at this point, as I, who's this person, me? But I wasn't expecting him to respond to me. And so I said this message out saying, I've got one. And then he replied saying, oh, great, please send it to me. I was like, well, hang on a minute. Okay. So I emailed it over to him. And I'm still confident at this point because off said had come in and judged the school and things. I'm really happy with this. Is any of those? He back and says, would you like a chat rich? You know, I talk it through. And I was like, okay. So I did an online call with him. And this is probably the, you know, the first time in kind of like six or seven years that anyone had really judged what I was doing. And I often had, but in some sense, there's a process that you follow and you can do certain things. But this is the first time since London, really, that I felt as somebody was going to look at my work. I had a teacher in my school in Liverpool was brilliant. He was a great leader, but he wasn't a teaching and learning guy. And he would put his hands up to say that. So he wasn't necessarily the person that would judge me on that. He would allow me to lead. So he hadn't kind of, you know, made decisions about what I was doing. He was more just rich. You're the person. You've got the expertise, you know, go and do it. So when I met with Ross and he was happy with the policy in a sense that he was what the teaching and learning things were trying to get across. What his criticism was was how I was measuring success. So he said, right, you've got these 10 things that you want to look at, this playbook that you've created. How do you know that it's happening? And we talked a little bit through our learning walks and how we were like going into lessons and looking at them. And he said, so that was so obvious then, this Eurichamur running. He said, well, you're looking for 10 things in a learning walk. And I was like, yeah, you know, that can see your grin there straight away. That you realize how silly that that is. Only when he's saying out loud, though. Exactly, exactly. When he asked that question, he says, you're looking for 10 things in a learning walk. And I've processed the ear in my head thinking, I know where he's going with this. And I was like, yeah, he's like, so how confident are you that the teacher can judge those 10 things in 12 minutes? And I knew that was his question. And I was like, I'm not. And I tried to justify why I was doing it. And what I really liked is, and I did have a justification because it was a journey that we were going on. And I needed a level of consistency that maybe wasn't perfect. I wasn't expecting the perfect do now or the perfect, but I wanted it to happen. So there was a level of compliance that I was trying to build. So I had a justification. I was trying to tell him why I was doing it. And he was like, it stopped me and said Richard, you got me for 10 more minutes. Do you want to justify your past or do you want me to talk to you about moving forward? And I was like, oh, I got him in it. Wow. I stared back and was like, you know, I'm really sorry. I've been so used to doing all the talking in my school and telling people what to do. I'd lost that extent at someone saying, actually, I'm the expert in the room now, not you. And I stopped and said, I'm just going to keep my mouth closed for the next 10 minutes. I've soak up everything this person has to offer me. This is free professional development. You know, so I literally just stopped and went, okay, tell me what you got. And he talked me through what they were doing about research projects and some of the schools that he was working with. I was like, right, okay, great. That's my next step. Well, that there was two things. One was giving me a path to move forward. But secondly, it kind of knocked me down a peg or two, my arrogance that I felt the smartest person in the room a little bit at times. And to be humbled me to go actually, I'm not. And maybe because of my lack of challenge within my own school, I may be not thinking through as much as I could some of my decisions. And if I had thought it through, I may have come to the conclusion that what was did in about five seconds that it wasn't maybe the best I had to use. So that was my starting point of going, I need to actually slow down a little bit and listen to these external voices and accept this support from outside because that's the only way my school is going to go to the next step. Leaders tell me all the time that they struggle to find a practical way to get evidence in form practice into every classroom. And that's where teaching walkthroughs come in. They transform the most effective teaching techniques into five step visual guides that are actually easy to follow. And what happens when your team use them? Well enthusiasm spreads teachers improve their craft and they genuinely love using them. And I do too. That's why I'm proud to be a consultant for teaching walkthroughs. You can find out more at walkthroughs.co.uk or using the links in the show notes. Quick one before we continue, I am really excited to be partnering with the International Quick Limit Association on the International Leaders Conference 2026. If you're serious about growing as a leader, this is the one of n you need in your calendar this year. We have got some of the biggest speakers in education coming together for this. And because we know our audience is literally all over the world, we're running it twice across different time zones. So wherever you are, you can be there live. That's the seventh and eighth of May head to international leaders conference.com or grab the link in the show notes. I love this journey that you've taken and like it can be difficult for us to admit those, I guess those ego qualities that we all have sometimes that over confidence you called it arrogant. So I'd say maybe over confidence. And then that kind of reflection journey. So I'm curious because to get to where you are today, I mean, you're an author doing just incredible work. But I know you've been gradually stepping out of your comfort zone in different ways. So I'd love to kind of dig in to there. Like talk me through your journey of putting yourself out there. So obviously it started with that kind of lost moment where I kind of contacted him and at the same time and part of where this kind of overconfidence came from, I'll use that word I prefer that. I had shared our playbook on Twitter about the same time and it got really good feedback. And I mean by that is it was re-treated a lot and lots of likes because they liked the visuals of it. And obviously what Waster done is he went behind the visuals right and deeper. But the actual policy was shared online and it went really, really well. As I was sharing it and it had lots of views, Adam Boxer made a post and basically said everyone be careful about visual playbooks online because it's all about the deeper meaning behind it. The playbook itself is not the most important thing. It's how somebody got there. And I've applied it, Adam saying I completely agree with you. My journey to this playbook is much more important than the playbook. And so that prompted me to go, well, I need to share deeper than just this document. I want to sell my story. I want to tell my story about how this came to fruition. And so I started blogging. I started blogging because people that were interested in this product that I produced. But I wanted to provide the back story because I felt that that was really important because I didn't want people to make the same as they had. I just make in this show and he probably did not think it through. So I started blogging because they were some interest and I thought, well, people have interested. I want to blog about how I got there. And I started writing and then suddenly that led to through some of my conversations, I ended up getting invited to a research edge to talk in Northern Ireland. And I went to talk about the balance between compliance and autonomy. And because it was really important to me that this document that I produced wasn't just that. It was a story about how I balanced those really two challenging things in the school, how they need to be a level of compliance for consistency, but how you need to make teachers autonomous in terms of decision making. So I didn't want people to see the shiny product and think one thing or the other. So I started off my blogging the story and then I went to the next logical step, which was I'm now going to actually share this story in a 40 minute slot because I feel like I want to tell you that it almost felt like a disservice to just have this document out there that had been seen and liked and not tell anyone where it had come from. So that was it. And I wasn't really thinking about being brave right in the at that point or book. I was just thinking about feeling like it was short-changed a bit that people were liking something that I did, but didn't know all the effort and the nuances that had gone into it. So I thought, let's tell that. So I went over to there and it was that was a girl moment, but it was kind of even bigger than I remember the night before the event. We went to a night out. It was arranged by my Robert's who organized the research. And it was in a bar in Northern Ireland. And I remember walking in. I got it really early because I was really nervous because I had seen the speaker list. Yeah. And I got it really, really. I remember going upstairs and nobody was there. I was like, oh no, I definitely got here early. So I went back downstairs, walked around outside for a little bit, came back in again and then everyone was there. And I saw all these people sitting there and I quickly was there talking with Daisy and I just looked at them and I just thought, you know what? I'm going to go for it. These two people, the two people that have really shaped like my understanding of it and it done so much, I think, for moving education in the UK. And so there was other people talking and there were all people that I kind of seen on Twitter. But I just went straight for the two people in hindsight. I was like, oh wow, because they were having quite a deep conversation, I think. But I thought, you want to go one chance, I would do. So I just sat down. I just went, excuse me. I just wanted to say, and I'm like really kind of fanning and say like that, you know, you do a brilliant. I don't know who I am. And they were amazing. And they just sat there. They asked me about my journey and were asking me questions and asking about my talk. And I just learned so much in this night out from these two people that I kind of idolized. And I was just like, wow, like this is amazing. I couldn't believe that the next day Daisy came to my talk and listened to me talk about autonomy and compliance. Surely she knows all of this stuff. And you know, I was humbled for becoming my room and listen to me. talk about my little thing that I was doing. But just to go and hear from these people, I thought, "Wow, I can't step back from this now because I want to be the best leader I can be." And realizing that there's these rooms where these people are going and talking about education on such a deep level, I need to be in the room when these people have these conversations, because they're talking about it way beyond what I'm doing in my leadership meetings in my school. So I say, "How do I get to be involved in more of these really rich conversations?" And so then I just kind of threw myself into Twitter, the full thing, more conferences and so on and so on, and it's just got bigger and bigger. And eventually, it got to me writing a book. But all that started with kind of that brave of saying, "I've got something to share." It's been shortchanged by a sense that people just think it's an image, but I won't tell the backstory. And it ended with me making some great friendships, actually, with people that I really admired. And I can pick up the phone now and say, "I need help with something. What are your thoughts?" And it's made me a much better leader. So I'm so pleased that I jumped out of that kind of comfort zone that I was in. Something you've just said there really, really strikes me, Richard. And you said, "I had this idea that I'd put out there, but what a shame it was that people maybe just liked it, saw it for a couple of seconds and didn't understand the depth." That's really powerful to me, because I think we are in this world that just value such short form content, kind of quick content, that for the people who are creating behind it, you can almost kind of put an idea into the world, Twitter likes it or X likes it, and then feel like you shouldn't talk about it again because it's done. And yet, what a disservice to the idea and to the thinking, to treat especially educational ideas like that. You've really made me think on that point. Thank you. Yeah, something that I noticed, with my promotion, more so on LinkedIn than I would say, that on Twitter. So when I make a blog, I often make an image to go with it. And it's more so because I feel like my image is gay interaction. If I create an image to represent what I'm talking about, people maybe haven't got the time to read the blog, but whenever I attach the image of the blog, I find it gets much more views, much more likes and retweets. And it's not going through to necessarily blog reads, but they're seeing the images. So people have got time to look at that, but as you said, and everyone's busy, so I get why they're not going deeper. But yeah, that is a frustration of mine. But yeah, it exists, doesn't it? And that's kind of why I wanted to myself out there. But I appreciate Adam because Adam was there, again, kind of humbling me, saying this document that's been produced, that is going around, you need to look deeper. And he's greater that is making people say, it's deeper than just the pictures or the images. And you do need to go deeper. And it's, I start always used to do so when you're busy in the school, is it? To look at those things. Yeah, exactly, exactly. So I'm wondering then, fast forward to now, and now you've released a blog, the Learning Habits. So I'm almost picturing, like visualizing your professional life here from. We're kind of at a school, kind of that stuff, starting to put out there, tweeting a little bit bigger, and then kind of blogging a little bit bigger. And now we've got a book. So you're actually demanding more attention from people in a more sustained way, in a way, aren't you? But I'm wondering what's the learning being for you through this journey? Yeah, so it was never a plan. I don't know, I was written a book there when they started off 20 years ago. That was what they wanted to do. And I was my second or third conference that I talked to, and I was talking with Bradley Bush, just sitting at a bar after the conference. And I remember him saying to me, "If you had to write one book, what would it be?" And I told him, I said, "Well, I'm really frustrated "that kids make really poor decisions. "We're talented to do X and Y, and they don't, "they do A and B." And that kind of really frustrates me. And he was like, "You all right. "Do you have the answers to that?" And I was like, "No, I've got a bit some pieces "that I'd like to explore. "I don't have a definite answer, "because if I did, I'd already be doing it." And he said, "You're in touch with my editor "without loads, because I think that there's a gap there. "They're really, really good with first-time authors." So I was like, "Oh, okay." So I reached out with this initial idea and I thought I had some of the answers, but not completely. And that's kind of where I started. A problem that I had myself that I didn't feel had been answered that had frustrated me, and I just took it further and further. And what was really interesting with that is that I was so challenging, 'cause I hadn't thought like this before. And everything I'd done before this point was always someone else has done this first. You know what, I'm looking at changing something in my school, my teaching and learning policy, the images that I produced would never have been made if Oli Cav didn't exist. My playbook that I shared online was, and actually, going back a step on that, he was someone early on in Twitter when I produced something, suddenly responded to me saying, "Have you thought about doing this?" And helped me move it around. So he just out of nowhere gave me some advice early on to make that look clear in our school. And I remember sharing online version one and then Oli Cav's version two. And it was so much better. So there's these people that got these expertise that I was kind of magpying and taking on. And this is the first time where I had a problem that I identified that no one was giving me the answer. So it was a real weird scenario where I was like, I have to do this myself. And it was probably a really good idea that I had a book deal attached to it, 'cause the depth that I had to take, the 18 months of writing and research, and it took to get to an answer where there was concise enough to put in, I say concise, 60,000 words, was that journey? And I don't think if there was in a book deal with it, would I have gone that far in trying to understand? And the thing to that is that I was trying to be a leader in a school and write a book. And halfway through, I'd left the leadership position to do some consult and see him finish the book, 'cause I didn't feel like I could do the book service whilst being in the role because of the noise of the daily job. I could have produced a finished product, but I wouldn't have been as proud or as happy as I was when I got to the end. So just the deeper I went, the more I realized how complex this idea that I was building was, and felt like I needed to take all that noise away to really get in touch with and understand what it meant to write. And so I started off writing it, not on a whim, but to try and solve my own problem, and ended up producing something that I'm really proud of that had drawn research from lots of areas outside of education, into the education conversation. So that's kind of where it is now. - Huge congratulations Richard. And it seems we both owe a debt of gratitude to Bradley Bosh, because I'm also with our Outledge, our book is with our Outledge, and we were also introduced to our Outledge through Bradley, and Sam Gibbs actually. So those two people, it seems like he's the master connector. Thank goodness for Bradley. - Yeah. - In our journeys, hey. So I wonder kind of bringing this conversation to a close, this has been incredibly useful to me, and I'm sure many people who are listening are thinking, gosh, you know, I wouldn't mind a slice of that journey. I want to step out of my comfort zone and seek challenge, but it seems like a scary place. And I wonder if you've got any advice to any leaders who are listening, like what would you advise a leader who is itching to have a wider impact or to seek extra challenge given your journey? What would you advise? The advice I would give on myself early on in my journey would definitely have been to not be afraid to be wrong, not just not be afraid to be wrong, but be willing to step away from the voices that are going to kind of stroke that ego, the people that are always going to say, well done to you that are going to help you, because it's helpfulness to that, because it reads motivation, because you're like, oh, these people love what I'm doing, but I think if you're going to make real change, you have to be willing to be wrong, and that only works if you go to someone who isn't going to just tell you what's right, it was going to be a critical friend, and isn't just going to stroke that ego. So for me, that first moment was that last but your moment when that happened, and since then, the network of people around me that I built, that also do that is much greater. And I think linked to that is the one true power of blogging. Let's say you don't go any further than that, and you just want to start blogging, and you don't write books or go to education conferences. One thing I learned about blogging is that you think much more deeply when you put something out into the world, than you do when you just put it into your own ecosystem, it's in your own school. So when I'm writing a blog, Adam Boxer might read it, probably not, but he might read it, and so if he does, and it's really bad, he's going to comment in a constructive way, he's going to say something. So when you realize, even when you blog, there's a chance that the external people who know lots of stuff for education are going to read this or could read this, I need to be really careful about my evidence that I have that it's on solid foundations, and that it's evidence informed, because if you put something out that isn't evidence informed, you will get constructive criticism, and that's really hard to take, but you will. And so I think when I started blogging, I thought so much more deeply, and even if nobody's going to read it, say you're going to implement a new policy in your school, and you're like, well, I'm not just going to implement it, I'm going to write a blog and tell everyone else in the world what I'm going to do, because when you know the world is your audience, you have to think much more deeply about every single voice that might listen to this, and so it must take a more considered approach. And so I did that when we started implementing instructional coaching, I used blogging as almost my reflection tool for myself to talk through, I've had a conversation, which was good, right? Let's blog about that conversation, and that consolidated my understanding. One thing that Ollie Kout told me once in one of his talks is about the external memory field, and that the fact that you can reduce your cognitive load by having this external memory field. And to me, blogging is that, blogging is this layer where you organize your ideas in a much more logical way, and if we take that back to cognitive science, actually, you're building your schema when you blog, because you're putting it in a structured way and thinking about it much more deeply, then you would be if you just kind of write a list. And so to me, blogging is a way to the about your own knowledge of what you're doing, develop your schema, and then your mental model of that idea or the same note. it gives you that external scrutiny. So go and blog, it doesn't matter if nobody reads it because you will still gain from it, you know you're set off on that experience. You're not chasing the book or the conglosering of those things because you get those things great, but you will be a better leader, I think, if you start reflecting on your practice and blogging and using that as a mechanism for change. - This was such a rich conversation. I really, really loved it. And what really stuck with me was Richard's honesty on how invisible good culture actually is until you leave it. And how easy it is to assume your reputation is gonna do the work for you in a new context. I think there are a few things we can take from this episode. First, when you arrive somewhere new, listen before you leave. Second, see Council critical friends, not just cheerleaders, and third, don't underestimate the power of putting your thinking out into the world. Whether that's a blog, a conversation, or something bigger, I really encourage you to get in touch with Richard who can find him and his amazing work using the links in the show loads. Education leaders is hosted by me, Shane Leading, thanks to the show editor, Pete McGill, production assistant, Skyloar, Sturman, and for the original music by Guillermo Silva. And thank you so, so much for tuning in today. If we don't speak before, I'll see you here next week. (upbeat music) If you're interested in learning more about teaching walkthroughs or the International Quick and Lump Association, check out the links in the show notes.