From Reading to Leading Blog

From 'Reading to Leading: Thoughts on leadership, learning and life in schools' is a reflective blog that brings together research, professional experience and the everyday realities of school life. Written by our Deputy Headteacher, Nicola Brooks, it offers thoughtful insights for leaders who want to grow, learn and lead well, always keeping children, staff and relationships at the heart of their work. Driven by Nicola’s love of reading and leadership, the blog provides a space to reflect on what she has read and how these ideas might inform and strengthen practice.

From Reading to Leading: Thoughts on leadership, learning and life in schools

Listening in Leadership, Blog Post 1, January 2026

Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice

‘Hamlet’, Act 1 Scene 3 by William Shakespeare

In ‘The Medium and the Message’, Chapter 5 of ‘The Social Brain’ by Tracey Camilleri, Samantha Rockey and Robin Dunbar (2024), the importance of listening is stressed. For leaders, listening is as important as talking, yet we probably spend more time thinking about what we’re going to say than how well we hear others. This blog post draws on the ideas raised by Camilleri, Rockey and Dunbar (2024) and considers what they might mean for educational leaders.

Communication underpins effective leadership

Leadership research makes clear that communication is at the heart of effective leadership (Liu, Chambers and Moore, 2023). A leader’s communication style can influence team commitment, organisational outcomes and perceived leader effectiveness.

However, there are a few things that make communication tricky for leaders. Firstly, the meaning of words and how they are interpreted across different generations varies, something which is increasingly pertinent given that most schools will have at least 4 different generations working within them from Baby Boomers to Gen Z. Moreover, each generation tends to bring its own communication preferences and expectations of leaders. Typically,

· Baby Boomers prefer face to face or phone communication

· Generation X tend to favour emails

· Gen Z seek digital and visual communication with rapid feedback and response

Consequently, using a single communication style is unlikely to work for everyone, so leaders should consider how they can vary their communication style or follow up on key messages through different mediums. For example, when introducing a change or reestablishing vision at a January INSET, you might communicate this message in person, then follow it up with an email or one page infographic. This layered approach helps ensure key information is understood and accessible for the whole staff body.

As well as carefully crafting what we want to say, it’s equally as important to focus on how we’re going to say it. Nonverbal cues, such as tone, posture and gestures, can affect change how a message is received. Consequently, spending time practising the delivery of your message may be time well spent.

Why not try this? Ask a colleague to record you delivering your next key message. Watch the video back without sound and ask someone who wasn’t in the room what type of message you’re giving and the mood you’re in. If their reading matches your intent, then your words and body language are working effectively in tandem. If not, it may be worth pausing and considering why this mismatch is occurring and how you can change this next time.

Hearing and Being Heard

The good news is that we can learn to be better listeners and this is likely to improve how we’re viewed as leaders. Perceiving active listening in a listener supports more positive interactions over time, shaping how individuals respond in future shared experiences (Rogers, 1959). Mishra (2020) suggests that empathetic listeners demonstrate a genuine willingness to listen. This enables them to both understand the spoken message and be attentive to what remains unspoken. As leaders, how often do we reflect on our balance between speaking and listening? During a busy day, do we give enough time and space for others to share their views? And are we genuinely willing to not only receive them, but welcome them?

Reflecting on Mishra’s (2020) findings, one element of nonverbal listening that I would like to improve in 2026 is to listen without appearing occupied e.g. by shuffling items or being distracted by incoming emails. I know that I’m often worried about forgetting things, so I like to write things down, but I’m concerned that means I’m not giving the speaker my full attention. Another strategy I’d like to try, which may help me focus more on what the speaker is saying, rather than my reply, is ‘wait for 8’. This is a strategy we use in the classroom when using questioning to provide processing time. This technique may help me slow down my thinking, processing what to say after the other person has finished their point.

The Minds in the Room: the Shakespeare Principle

Within your leadership team, mentalising is likely to support your daily communication. Mentalising is our ability to understand our own mental state and that of others, which helps us predict, explain and respond to others’ behaviour. Developing mentalising skills supports leader effectiveness by enabling us to understand how our message is being received and interpreted.

Mentalising encourages leaders to be reflective, prompting questions such as, what might my team be worried about? Or, what do my team need from me right now? We use our mentalising capacity with words like, ‘believe’ or ‘wonder’. These help leaders to stay curious and respond with thoughtfulness, both of which should support emphatic listening which leads to the benefits outlined above.

Understanding our own thoughts is first order intentionality. Considering what someone else’s thoughts might be is second order intentionality. Third order intentionality involves considering what one colleague thinks about another. For example,

Noah is wondering whether Bilal’s suggestion would actually work when children are in the classroom.

Camilleri, Rockey and Dunbar (2024) suggest that most individuals can manage up to fifth order intentionality, meaning we can keep track of five minds including our own. This prompts reflection on the size of leadership teams to effectively mentalise what everyone in the group might be thinking.

Camilleri, Rockey and Dunbar (2024) also suggest that the upper limit of group size for effective conversation is 4- any more than this and subconversations are likely to occur. This is partly because of mentalising, since some people will find more than 4 minds difficult to mentalise. This again raises interesting reflections regarding group size, both for groupwork in the classroom and for staff training. Krems, Dunbar and Neuberg (2016) suggest that an optimum conversational group of 4 isn’t new, observing that Shakespeare typically limits onstage conversations to around three or four characters, successfully aligning his dialogue with the audience’s cognitive limits.

In summary

As leaders, perhaps 2026 should be the year we redress the balance between speaking and listening. By reflecting on how we communicate and providing more time for others to communicate with us, we can lead in a way that’s open, thoughtful and responsive.
Different generations have different communication preferences, meaning a single communication approach rarely works in schools. Using multiple communication methods ensures key messages are understood by everyone.
Active and empathetic listening builds trust, strengthens relationships and shapes how people respond to us in the future.
Mentalising (understanding our own thoughts and those of others) helps us anticipate others’ feelings and lead more thoughtfully.
Conversations tend to function best in groups of 4. This makes mentalising manageable and prevents subconversations.

Down the rabbit hole…….what tangents did I follow whilst reading and writing that I want to explore further at a later date?

That different generations have different expectations of leaders
That different generations respond differently to organisational change
Women and the likeability penalty
The physical attractiveness penalty

References:

Camilleri, T., Rockey, S. and Dunbar, R., 2024, The Social Brain: The Psychology of Successful Groups. Penguin, London.

Krems, J.A., Dunbar, R.I.M. & Neuberg, S., 2016, Something to talk about: are conversation sizes constrained by mental modeling abilities? Evolution and Human Behavior, 37(6), pp.423–428. Available online at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1090513816301076

Liu, E.H., Chambers, C.R. and Moore, C., 2023, Fifty years of research on leader communication: What we know and where we are going. The Leadership Quarterly, 34(6), 101734. Available online at https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1048984323000607

Mishra, S., 2020, ‘Listening as a leadership tool: A survey of subordinates’ perception towards listening skills of effective leaders’, Xi’an Dianzi Keji Daxue Xuebao (Journal of Xidian University), 14, pp.1410–1417. Available online at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/342170352_Listening_as_a_Leadership_Tool_A_Survey_of_Subordinates'_Perception_towards_Listening_Skills_of_Effective_Leaders/citation/download

Rogers, C. 1959, A theory of therapy, personality and interpersonal relationships as developed in the client-centered framework. New York, McGraw Hill.