The Blog
September 15, 2026 · Adelee
Restorative discipline is often mistaken for avoiding consequences. Current research suggests something more demanding: high standards, high support, responsibility for harm, meaningful repair, and leadership that treats relationships as part of the work.
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September 15, 2026 · Adelee
Leaders sometimes have seconds—not hours—to decide. Current research on stress, expertise, cognitive bias, decision inertia, and adaptive teams suggests that better in-the-moment decisions are built long before the moment arrives.
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September 15, 2026 · Adelee
Stories can help organizations make sense of change, but the most powerful narratives leave room for people to contribute, question, imagine, and act. Current research on storytelling, vision, creativity, and innovation offers important lessons for leaders.
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September 15, 2026 · Adelee
Organizations invest heavily in workplace culture, yet employees can still feel profoundly lonely. Current research suggests that loneliness is less about physical proximity and more about relationship quality, leadership, work design, belonging, and what employees repeatedly experience at work.
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September 15, 2026 · Adelee
Leaders rarely have all the information they want before a decision is required. Current research on uncertainty, sensemaking, adaptive leadership, and decision-making suggests that good leadership is less about predicting correctly and more about acting, learning, and adapting responsibly.
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September 15, 2026 · Adelee
Good governance is not passive governance. Effective boards know when to oversee, advise, partner, and when to let management manage.
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September 14, 2026 · Adelee
Serious work does not have to be joyless work. Research on positive emotion, workplace play, gratitude, engagement, and toxic positivity offers important lessons for leaders trying to create workplaces where people can learn, perform, and thrive.
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September 14, 2026 · Adelee
A new workforce is learning to solve problems through digital tools, networks, experimentation, and AI. What does that mean for work—and for leaders trying to create the conditions for good judgement, learning, and innovation?
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September 14, 2026 · Adelee
Collaboration alone does not create learning. Explore how leaders can create workplaces where people question, reflect, learn from one another, and adapt their practice in response to what their clients, students, projects, and context need.
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April 25, 2026 · Adelee
Drawing on futures thinking, complexity leadership theory, and emerging scholarship on adaptive capacity, this reflection explores how inclusive leadership practices—shared power, psychological safety, collaborative inquiry, equity-driven…
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April 25, 2026 · Adelee
Drawing on the work of Amy Edmondson (2019), collaborative professionalism (Hargreaves & O’Connor, 2018), and emergent research on trust and relational leadership, this blog explores how psychological safety becomes a cornerstone of…
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April 24, 2026 · Adelee
Drawing on research in distributed leadership (Spillane, 2006; Harris, 2013), culturally responsive leadership (Khalifa, 2018), and equity-driven transformation (Theoharis, 2007), this reflection challenges leaders to examine how their…
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April 23, 2026 · Adelee
Walk into any school or district office today, and you’ll find equity commitments displayed proudly on walls, websites, and strategic plans. These statements matter — they articulate values and set direction. But while statements signal…
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April 21, 2026 · Adelee
This blog explores how leaders cultivate practices of deep listening that draw insight from those who experience school, policy, change, and community from the margins. Through research, reflective narrative, and leadership coaching…
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April 7, 2026 · Adelee
Inclusion is one of the most familiar words in our educational lexicon, yet one of the least understood in practice. It appears in vision statements, board priorities, and professional learning plans. It is paired with diversity and…
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March 30, 2026 · Adelee
“In the indeterminate conditions of environmental damage, nature is suddenly unfamiliar again.” — Tsing et al., 2017, p. M2.
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January 9, 2026 · Adelee
Language is not neutral. It shapes what we notice, what we value, and what we believe is possible. Yet in education, leadership often remains tethered to an inherited vocabulary that constrains imagination and limits innovation. Drawing on…
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December 18, 2025 · Adelee
In a world defined by volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA), leadership cannot be reduced to strategic plans and predictable roadmaps. To navigate the future, leaders must learn to attend to the subtleties of daily life…
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December 18, 2025 · Adelee
Equity in education is too often reduced to a checklist of initiatives or an acronym wedged between diversity and inclusion. Yet true equity demands more — it requires leadership that designs systems responsive to the varied needs of…
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November 26, 2025 · Adelee
In complex systems, small actions often catalyze significant change. Drawing on complexity leadership theory, the butterfly effect, and recent scholarship on pedagogical leadership and emergent change, this reflection explores how…
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November 26, 2025 · Adelee
Educational leaders today face a persistent tension between encouraging creative, responsive teaching and maintaining accountability within increasingly complex systems. Drawing on Brown and Friesen’s (2025) concept of interconnecting…
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September 30, 2025 · Adelee
On September 30, Canada pauses to mark the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation — a day that calls us not just to remember but to reckon. It is a day that invites us to sit with uncomfortable truths, to listen deeply to stories that…
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February 2, 2025 · Adelee
Remember, finding joy is a journey, not a destination. Be patient with yourself and celebrate the small victories along the way. By incorporating these practices into your daily life, you can cultivate a deeper sense of joy and fulfillment.
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October 28, 2024 · Adelee
Creativity is often seen as a soft skill, but it’s a crucial component of a thriving workplace. It drives innovation, problem-solving, and overall job satisfaction. Here’s a guide to fostering creativity in your team:
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October 30, 2023 · Adelee
My dad had a saying,” If everyone is special – then no one is special.” As kids, we used to giggle and appreciate that he was calling out some of our teachers and loved ones on their behaviour. As we grew older, we started to understand…
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October 23, 2023 · Adelee
To be successful in your ability to walk through uncertainty, I believe there are three central questions that a leader should be able to answer on the spot:
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October 2, 2023 · Adelee
This was really interesting for me to see and I couldn’t help wanting to unpack the emotions and sort out what was happening.
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September 11, 2023 · Adelee
This is a question that I’ve been asking myself a lot lately. Because believing the best in others is not something to be assumed; you must be intentional in checking the lens you’re looking through when viewing others.
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September 11, 2023 · Adelee
During periods of economic uncertainty, a common response from leaders is streamlining their operations and focusing on what they deem as being essential to their organization’s ability to ride out the storm.
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September 11, 2023 · Adelee
Aristotle believed in two kinds of happiness. Hedonic happiness is derived from pleasure. The second kind of happiness is eudaimonia. This comes from pursuing virtue and meaning.
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September 11, 2023 · Adelee
Have you heard of Jack Nevison’s research on the “Rule of Fifty”? In his studies on professionals and their productivity, Nevison found that working over 50 hours in a week actually reduced productivity. In fact, 50 hours on the job only…
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September 11, 2023 · Adelee
Maybe it won’t surprise you, but [studies](https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/people-and-organizational-performance/our-insights/the-great-attrition-is-making-hiring-harder-are-you-searching-the-right-talent-pools) show that 50% of…
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September 11, 2023 · Adelee
Those two lines immediately stand out in the opening pages of Susan Fowler’s book [Why Motivating People Doesn’t Work…and What Does: The New Science of Leading, Energizing, and…
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September 11, 2023 · Adelee
Of course, risk also feels risky (or at least it should). Differentiating between the two is difficult, which is why finding institutions, methods or coaches that have experience in the difference is valuable.
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August 24, 2023 · Adelee
A candid first-person account of how imposter syndrome quietly shapes career decisions — and what actually helped in working through it.
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August 31, 2023 · Adelee
During an interview on [The Creative Classroom…
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August 28, 2023 · Adelee
Generative A.I. has created some very real challenges with academic integrity. Schools have been scrambling to create systems and policies that address the potential for cheating. In the past, I’ve written about how we might redefine the…
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August 28, 2023 · Adelee
The handshake depicted on this Treaty 6 medal is understood by nêhiyawak to symbolize asotamâkêwin – a sacred promise to live together in the spirit of good relations.
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August 24, 2023 · Adelee
The animation was created to help start conversations about the different ways in which we can help young people to thrive in a challenging world.
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August 24, 2023 · Adelee
A 13-year-old high school student named Emma is watching intently as a little ball moves rapidly up and down her laptop screen. Eventually, using just the power of her brain, she is able to gain control over its movements. This may seem…
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September 11, 2023 · Adelee
I manage an operations department for the headquarters of a large media company. I have six direct reports and about 70 workers who report to them.
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