Veteran educator Christopher M. Spence’s forthcoming book argues that meaningful school leadership begins with listening, continues through learning and earns its authority through service.
A new school year always begins with visible signs of renewal: freshly prepared classrooms, revised schedules, returning staff and students arriving with new hopes. Beneath that familiar activity lies a more demanding question. What kind of leadership will shape the year ahead? For veteran educator Christopher M. Spence, the answer begins not with a program or slogan, but with three disciplined actions: listen, learn and lead.
That sequence forms the foundation of his forthcoming book, Leadership That Matters: Listen, Learn and Lead. Shaped by decades of experience spanning the classroom, the principal’s office and district-level leadership, the book offers a practitioner’s perspective on what schools need from those entrusted to guide them. Its message is particularly relevant at the start of an academic year, when expectations are being set, relationships are taking shape and a leader’s earliest choices can influence the culture that follows.
Spence first developed the manuscript from experiences during his 2009 to 2013 tenure in educational leadership. Schools have continued to change since then. Technology is reshaping instruction, communities are navigating new social pressures and educators are being asked to respond to increasingly complex student needs. Yet the central challenges of leadership remain remarkably familiar. People still want to be respected. Students still need to know that adults believe in them. Families still want to be welcomed as partners. Educators still need clarity, support and opportunities to grow.
The book’s first principle is deceptively simple: leaders must listen before they decide. In education, listening is not passive and it is not a public-relations exercise. It means creating regular opportunities to hear from students, staff, families, trustees and community partners, especially when their experiences complicate a leader’s assumptions. It also means paying attention to what attendance patterns, academic progress, student behavior and staff feedback are revealing. Data can identify a pattern, but listening helps a leader understand the people and circumstances behind it.
Learning follows. Spence argues that effective leaders cannot ask everyone else in an organization to improve while behaving as though their own development is complete. They participate in professional learning, remain visible in classrooms, study evidence, invite honest feedback and adjust when a strategy is not working. Visibility, in this sense, is not surveillance. It is a way to understand the daily experience of teaching and learning and to communicate a genuine message: I am here to support the work, learn alongside you and help remove barriers.
Only then comes leading. For Spence, leadership requires both high expectations and high support. Schools cannot improve when expectations are unclear or accountability disappears, but accountability without trust rarely produces lasting change. The strongest leaders communicate what matters, explain why it matters and help people develop the knowledge and confidence to meet the standard. They understand that improvement is not something done to people. It is built with them.
That approach also requires leaders to look honestly in the mirror. A new school year may bring ambitious priorities, but no strategic plan can substitute for self-awareness. Leaders establish the emotional weather of an organization through the way they respond to disagreement, pressure, setbacks and competing interests. They must know what they value, recognize how their conduct affects others and be willing to ask whether their decisions are serving the people at the heart of the institution.
Spence’s perspective has also been shaped by sport. As a former professional football player, he learned that effective teams rely on preparation, clearly understood roles, trust and a willingness to place collective success ahead of individual recognition. Those lessons transfer naturally to schools. A principal or superintendent may have formal authority, but no leader improves an organization alone. Progress depends on teachers, support staff, students, families, trustees and community partners understanding the goal and recognizing their place in achieving it.
This is where experience gives Leadership That Matters its weight. The book is not presented as a portrait of flawless leadership or a collection of simple answers. It is a reflection informed by achievement, adversity, changing responsibilities and continued learning. Spence writes as someone who has led at several levels, made difficult decisions, faced scrutiny and remained committed to examining what leadership demands of the person exercising it.
For school leaders beginning a new year, the practical invitation is clear. Listen closely enough to understand the community you serve. Learn continuously from people, evidence, experience and mistakes. Then lead with courage, humility, purpose and care. Plans and priorities will change as the year unfolds, but those habits create a foundation strong enough to support meaningful improvement.
Leadership matters because people matter. The most important measure of a school leader is not how many initiatives were announced in September. It is what students and adults are able to become by June. Did they grow? Did they feel seen and heard? Did they develop confidence in their own capacity? Did the organization become more capable of serving its community? As another school year begins, those are questions worth carrying through every classroom visit, staff meeting and consequential decision.
