Leading from the middle: how everyday leadership shapes lasting improvement

As you look ahead to next year, does any of this sound familiar? Perhaps you (or someone you know) is about to step into a new leadership role - maybe as a syndicate or team lead - and you're wondering what it really takes to lead well. Or maybe you’ve already made the jump into a senior leadership position, only to realise just how different it feels from classroom teaching, and how little professional development prepared you for the shift.

You might be leading part of a curriculum rollout, juggling the competing needs and strengths of your team and trying to figure out where to focus your energy. Deep down, you want to do more than just manage admin, you want to lead in a way that makes a difference for your colleagues and ākonga.

If any of that resonates, you're not alone - and the good news is, there is a way to lead with clarity, purpose, and real impact.

Middle leaders are the engine of improvement

It may not always seem apparent, but these roles - sometimes called middle leadership roles - are crucial in schools and kura.

Middle leaders - whether they are department heads, team leaders, or curriculum coordinators -are fundamental to the success of our schools. Their importance stems from their unique position as the critical link between senior leaders and classroom teachers.

If you are in this kind of role, you are positioned to influence teachers and classroom teaching. This makes you central to helping your school achieve their improvement goals. Middle leaders hold the responsibility for delivering on the vision of improved outcomes for all students, particularly in reducing disparity and raising achievement.

Three approaches that fuel effective middle leadership

Effective middle leadership involves three interconnected sets of practices - building relational trust, deliberative problem-solving, and contextual responsiveness. As you read, reflect on how confidently you apply these in your practice.

1. Think beyond quick fixes

Strong middle leadership starts with the ability to slow down. Move beyond gut reaction and think deliberately. Rather than reacting on instinct, you bring your educational expertise to clearly define learning challenges, dig into their root causes, and align solutions that truly fit. It’s about being precise, strategic, and focused on what will make the biggest difference for your ākonga.

2. Lead improvement through relational conversations

You’ll often face moments where you must balance maintaining trust with pushing forward courageous, important conversations. Instead of choosing one over the other, you can lead by building trust through the work. This involves being transparent about your thinking, genuinely listening to others, and engaging with disagreement as a chance to learn. By offering respectful guidance and affirming teachers’ strengths, you cultivate the kind of relational environment where people feel safe to grow and stay committed to shared goals.

3. Respond to your context

What works in one place won’t always work in another. Effective leaders in Aotearoa succeed because they understand their unique school context and work with their ākonga, staff, whānau, and community, to ensure that strategies are not just adopted but adapted in ways that make them stick. By modelling new practices in your own classroom, staying honest about the challenges, and maintaining steady momentum, you show what real investment in change looks like.

Leading Edge: feel prepared to lead through times of change

Developing your leadership capabilities through focused professional learning next year will be key to meeting current challenges and leading real improvement for your students. If you are a school leader, creating opportunities for your middle and senior leaders’ growth in your school is powerful; you might find this podcast episode of interest [The Principals Season 2, Episode 2]

This year, in our Leading Edge programme, we have worked with nearly 100 emerging and senior leaders across Aotearoa New Zealand, across primary, intermediate, secondary and specialist settings. These leaders have been working hard to grow the capabilities above as they lean into challenges such as improving literacy and numeracy in Years 9-10, embedding structured literacy, strengthening collaboration among teachers and kaiāwhina, and championing culturally responsive practice.

Through a culturally responsive lens, they have been growing self-awareness of their leadership identity, learning how to foster high trust relationships though quality conversations, and focusing on job-embedded improvement challenges.

Places have now opened for our 2026 cohort and will fill fast. If you are stepping in or stepping up, now’s the time to register for Leading Edge.

References

• Edwards-Groves, C., Grootenboer, P., Hardy, I., & Rönnerman, K. (2019). Driving change from ‘the middle’: Middle leading for site based educational development. School Leadership & Management, 39(3-4), 315-333.

• Educational Leadership Capability Framework. Published in August 2018 by the Education Council.

• Patuawa, J., Robinson, V., Sinnema, C. & Zhu, T. (2021). Addressing Inequity and Underachievement: Middle Leaders’ Effectiveness in Problem Solving. Leading & Managing, 27(1), 51-78.

• Ministry of Education, New Zealand. (2012). Leading from the Middle: Educational Leadership for Middle and Senior Leaders. Learning Media Limited.

Want to find out more?

Contact Karen Spencer

• Leading Edge for middle and senior leaders