Stop Going to Curriculum Courses and Start Leading Your People with Jenny Cole | Season 4: Episode 15

Across the country, staff perception that leaders build trust sits at just 58%. And in more complex settings, staff didn’t ask for less work. They asked for better communication, stronger people management, and leaders who hold the line on below-the-line behaviour. The data consistently points to people skills and organisational conditions over individual coping.

This week, I’ve brought in Jenny Cole,  a leadership and executive coach who describes herself as a “recovering principal”. After twenty years in special education, twelve of them as a school leader, Jenny walked out of a crisis meeting with her handbag and never went back. Fifteen years on, she coaches school leaders across Australia through Positively Beaming and Beam Consulting, and this year published Teach, Lead or Leave, a book for anyone in education who is somewhere between a bit restless and completely done.

Jenny’s advice is unpopular, and she knows it: once you’re in a leadership role, stop going to courses on curriculum and behaviour. That is no longer your job. Your job is to lead the people doing that work, yet traditional leadership pathways rarely build capacity in team dynamics, trust or emotional intelligence. This is a practical, honest conversation about what capability development requires, why trust has to come before results, and what makes norms and frameworks stick long after the staff meeting where they were written.

In this episode:

• Why “untenable” has replaced “undoable”, and the conversation underneath the busyness
• Trust versus psychological safety, and the two things leaders are responsible for
• Why incivility is more prevalent in the more complex school environments
• The five types of people every leader needs by their side
• Person-independent systems, and why a shared phase-of-learning meeting should run exactly the same when the leader is away
• Why your team norms don’t stick, and the two-minute practice that turns a team meeting into a weekly wellbeing pulse check
• Above and below the line behaviours, and the personal accountability to notice when you have dipped
• What makes norms, difficult conversation frameworks and leadership PL stick

About Jenny

Jenny Cole is a leadership and executive coach, facilitator and educator, highly regarded across the education sector for her practical, no-nonsense approach. Jenny spent twenty years as a teacher and principal in special education, where she was recognised as a national expert in her field. Since leaving school leadership, she has built two businesses, Positively Beaming and Beam Consulting, drawing on qualifications in education, leadership, industrial relations and positive psychology. Jenny works alongside school leaders and their teams to embed leadership practices that measurably improve staff wellbeing and school culture, and is the author of Teach, Lead or Leave (2026).

LINKS AND RESOURCES

• Book: Teach, Lead or Leave by Jenny Cole
• Jenny’s webinar Series
• Tune into her Podcast: Positively Leading
• Brené Brown, The BRAVING inventory
• HPT Schools, Dr Pete Stebbins: high performance team protocols, meeting moderators and satisfaction scores
• Jim Collins, the Hedgehog Concept
• Article: Who Owns Staff Wellbeing and Why Leaders Must Make the First Move 
• Report: State of the Nation: Staff Wellbeing Across Australian Schools (2026)

Connect with Jenny

• Website: positivelybeaming.com.au 
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennycole-beaming/ 
• Instagram: @positivelybeaming
• Email: Jenny@positivelybeaming.com.au

Connect with Adrienne

• Website: adriennehornby.com.au 
• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/adrienne-hornby-a4126a205 
• Email: hello@adriennehornby.com.au 
• Well-Led Schools Partnership Program: adriennehornby.com.au/school-partnerships