Research for Teachers

Some of the most important moments in leadership do not happen inside formal meetings.

They happen afterward.

Not in front of agendas, strategic plans, or carefully facilitated discussion protocols, but in quieter conversations with someone we trust enough to think out loud beside. Looking back on several difficult moments in my leadership journey, I am increasingly convinced that my professional growth has often depended less on formal leadership structures and more on the presence of trusted colleagues willing to act as reflective sounding boards.

One conversation in particular remains vivid in my memory.

The meeting itself had been difficult. It was not dramatic or openly hostile, but I left feeling unsettled and mentally exhausted. The discussion had involved competing perspectives, tension around decision-making, and frustrations that were only partially articulated. As the meeting progressed, I found myself simultaneously trying to listen carefully, respond professionally, monitor group dynamics, and internally process my own emotional reactions.

By the end, I was replaying everything in my head.

Had I communicated clearly enough?
Had I escalated tension unintentionally?
Should I have spoken more directly?
Had I misunderstood what people were actually reacting to?

What struck me afterward was how isolating leadership can sometimes feel in moments like these. Even when surrounded by people, leadership often requires carrying uncertainty privately. There is rarely immediate clarity after difficult conversations. Instead, there is ambiguity, emotional residue, and the uncomfortable realization that complex professional situations rarely offer perfectly clean resolutions.

Later that day, I spoke with a trusted colleague and friend who had also been in the meeting.

What mattered most was not that they gave me answers. In fact, they did not attempt to solve the situation for me at all. Instead, they asked questions. They listened carefully. They challenged some of my assumptions gently. They helped me disentangle what had actually happened from the emotional interpretation I had attached to it.

At one point, what I thought would be a quick debrief turned into hours of conversation after school.

Somewhere during that conversation, my thinking shifted.

I began moving away from defensiveness and toward reflection. I could see the meeting with greater complexity. I could recognize both the validity of my own perspective and the legitimacy of others’ frustrations. Most importantly, I realized that my professional growth was happening not in isolation, but through dialogue.

That realization has stayed with me because schools often talk about reflection as though it is an entirely individual process. We encourage teachers and leaders to reflect independently through journals, self-assessments, or personal goal-setting. While those practices certainly matter, many of the most meaningful professional insights emerge socially through conversation with trusted colleagues.

Reflection is often relational.

Leadership work is deeply interpretive. Difficult meetings rarely involve simple technical problems with obvious solutions. Instead, they involve relationships, emotions, organizational culture, competing priorities, and incomplete information. In those moments, leaders need spaces where they can think aloud safely without immediately needing to perform certainty.

Relational trust becomes essential here.

Tschannen-Moran and Hoy (1998) found that trust plays a central role in professional learning and organizational functioning within schools. Trust allows educators to engage honestly with uncertainty, vulnerability, and professional struggle without fear that those admissions will later be used against them. Without trust, reflection often remains superficial because individuals protect themselves rather than openly examining their own thinking.

I have come to believe that trusted professional relationships are one of the most undervalued forms of leadership support in schools.

Not every colleague becomes a reflective sounding board. Those relationships require psychological safety, mutual respect, professional credibility, and the gradual accumulation of trust over time. They also require vulnerability. Asking someone to help unpack a difficult leadership moment means admitting uncertainty, frustration, or self-doubt — emotions that leaders sometimes feel pressure to conceal.

Yet ironically, those conversations often strengthen leadership capacity far more than performative certainty ever could.

Research on professional learning communities consistently demonstrates that collaborative inquiry supports deeper professional growth than isolated individual reflection (Vescio et al., 2008). Similarly, coaching literature highlights the importance of dialogic professional relationships in helping educators refine judgment and develop expertise through reflection and conversation (Knight, 2009).

Wenger’s concept of communities of practice further reinforces this idea by suggesting that professional learning is fundamentally social and situated within relationships and shared experiences (Li et al., 2009). Educators do not simply acquire understanding individually. They develop meaning collaboratively through participation in professional communities.

I see this now in my own leadership far more clearly than I once did.

Earlier in my career, I often viewed leadership growth as something that depended primarily on acquiring better strategies, stronger organizational systems, or more technical expertise. Those things certainly matter. But increasingly, I think leadership development depends equally on whether leaders have people around them who are willing to think with them honestly after difficult moments.

The conversation after the meeting matters because it is often where meaning-making actually occurs.

That does not mean every difficult situation becomes fully resolved afterward. Some tensions persist. Some decisions still feel imperfect even after extensive reflection. But trusted dialogue creates the possibility for intellectual humility, emotional regulation, and professional growth in ways that isolated overthinking often cannot.

When I think about the leaders who have influenced my growth most significantly, I do not primarily remember polished presentations or formal leadership frameworks.

I remember conversations.

I remember people who listened carefully, challenged thoughtfully, and created spaces where uncertainty could be examined rather than hidden.

Professional growth is deeply relational.

And sometimes the most important leadership conversation happens only after the meeting is over.

References

Knight, J. (2009). Coaching: Approaches and perspectives. The Coaching Psychologist, 5(1), 18–22.

Li, L. C., Grimshaw, J. M., Nielsen, C., Judd, M., Coyte, P. C., & Graham, I. D. (2009). Evolution of Wenger’s concept of community of practice. Implementation Science, 4(1), 11. https://doi.org/10.1186/1748-5908-4-11

Tschannen-Moran, M., & Hoy, W. K. (1998). Trust in schools: A conceptual and empirical analysis. Journal of Educational Administration, 36(4), 334–352. https://doi.org/10.1108/09578239810211518

Vescio, V., Ross, D., & Adams, A. (2008). A review of research on the impact of professional learning communities on teaching practice and student learning. Teaching and Teacher Education, 24(1), 80–91. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2007.01.004