Embracing Messy Leadership: How the Experience of 20,000 School Leaders Can Transform You and Your School

School leadership is messy, but coaching conversations offer an opportunity to step back from the demands of everyday work and focus on developing leadership capabilities.

Although every coaching conversation is personalized and every context is unique, many school leaders face similar issues. In Embracing MESSY Leadership, Alyssa Gallagher and Rosie Connor--directors of global educational leadership nonprofit BTS Spark--synthesize the experience gained from coaching more than 20,000 school leaders around the world and highlight the universal challenges.

Here, the authors unpack the key traits and mindsets of the MESSY leadership model, which embraces the human side of school leadership and provides practical strategies and tools that strengthen leadership capabilities. Coaching conversations that encourage leaders to adopt these specific mindsets will make it easier for them to lead in a complex world:

- Meaning Making: Create a shared vision and engage others by collaborating more effectively.
- Emotional Connection: Build deeper, more trusting relationships to give feedback and hold difficult conversations.
- Sensing the Future: Think creatively and tackle entrenched school improvement problems through experimentation and innovation.
- Seizing Momentum: Be proactive, gain control of how you prioritize your time, and embrace new ways of working.
- Your Presence: Build confidence by identifying the barriers that hold you back and learning how to overcome them.

Intentional coaching conversations tap into the potential power of school leaders and develop them to their fullest. Let Embracing MESSY Leadership structure those conversations and create school leaders that matter.

Rosie Connor founded BTS Spark and has led its educational leadership development and coaching work for over a decade. As global director, she has designed and launched hundreds of leadership development programs for school leaders across four continents. Motivated by a passion for supporting school leaders and teachers to do their best work, Rosie brings 25 years of experience in educational leadership. Rosie was selected as a 2023 Most Influential Educator by Australia's The Educator magazine. She collaborates with the World Innovation Summit for Education, OECD2030, and leading-edge school systems on future-focused school leadership post-pandemic.

Alyssa Gallagher co-leads BTS Spark in North America, helping school leaders across the United States and Canada access leadership coaching and professional development. Alyssa combines experience of school leadership and school district administration with expertise in leadership development. She spent 20 years in the U.S. public education K-12 sector, filling many roles, including teacher, principal, and assistant superintendent. Under Alyssa's guidance, Los Altos School District (California) became a nationally recognized leader in educational innovation, and her work was featured on CNN and by Forbes, Wired, The Economist, and 60 Minutes. Alyssa has coauthored two ASCD books: Design Thinking for School Leaders (2018) and Design Thinking in Play (2020).