I’ll be the first to admit that I didn’t always get this right.

There were plenty of times as a principal when I put a faculty meeting together simply because there wasn’t enough time. I had announcements to make, information to share, deadlines to cover, and another meeting on the calendar. So I opened PowerPoint, built a presentation, stood in front of the room, and talked.

Looking back, I realize I missed opportunity after opportunity.

I was asking teachers to engage students, facilitate discussion, build Relationships, and create meaningful learning experiences. Then I’d bring those same teachers together and do very little of that myself.

At the time, I didn’t think much about it. I had convinced myself that the goal of the meeting was to communicate information. As long as everyone left knowing what they needed to know, I had done my job.

Now I see it differently.

Every time I stood in front of my staff, I had an opportunity to demonstrate what I believed great instruction looked like. Every faculty meeting, professional development session, leadership retreat, or administrative meeting was a chance to model the very instructional practices I was asking teachers to use with students every single day.

Too often, I let those opportunities pass.

That lesson came rushing back to me this past week.

I was working with a district that was unveiling its new strategic plan to approximately 100 school leaders. If you’ve spent much time in Education, you’ve probably experienced one of these rollouts before. A leader stands at the front of the room, clicks through slide after slide, explains the vision, reviews the goals, and hopes everyone walks away understanding what comes next.

This was different.

Yes, there were slides. There was information that needed to be communicated. But the presentation wasn’t the experience.

The leaders intentionally built opportunities for people to think, discuss, reflect, collaborate, and process the work together. Conversations happened around every table. Participants wrestled with ideas instead of simply writing them down. Rather than treating the strategic plan as something to announce, they treated it as something the leadership team needed to understand, own, and eventually lead.

As I watched the day unfold, I couldn’t help but think about the message they were sending—not through their words, but through their leadership.

They were demonstrating the kind of learning experience they hoped every administrator would create for teachers. In turn, those administrators could create similar experiences for students.

That’s instructional leadership.

Too often we reduce instructional leadership to classroom walkthroughs, formal observations, feedback conversations, or analyzing assessment data. Those responsibilities certainly matter, but they aren’t the whole picture.

Instructional leadership also means demonstrating what effective teaching looks like whenever you’re leading adult learning.

When you facilitate a faculty meeting, you’re teaching.

When you lead professional development, you’re teaching.

When you facilitate a leadership retreat, you’re teaching.

When you meet with your administrative team, you’re teaching.

The question isn’t whether you’re teaching.

The question is what you’re teaching.

If every meeting consists of one person talking while everyone else listens, you’re teaching something.

If questions are discouraged because you’re trying to get through the agenda, you’re teaching something.

If collaboration is treated as an interruption instead of an expectation, you’re teaching something.

On the other hand, when you intentionally create opportunities for discussion, reflection, collaboration, and application, you’re teaching something entirely different. You’re showing your team what you value. You’re modeling practices they can immediately carry into classrooms, team meetings, and conversations with their own staff.

It doesn’t have to be complicated, either.

Maybe you send student achievement data to your staff before the meeting and use a simple “So What? Now What?” protocol. Instead of explaining what the data says, you allow your team to analyze it, draw conclusions, and identify next steps together. They don’t just hear your thinking—they develop their own.

Perhaps your team is reading a research article about instructional practices. Rather than reading it aloud or summarizing it from the front of the room, use an A/B Each Teach strategy. Partners divide the article, each person becomes the expert on their section, and then they teach one another. The strategy itself reinforces active learning while modeling an approach teachers can immediately use with students.

Or maybe each table dives deeply into a specific instructional standard, leadership practice, or section of your strategic plan. Then one member from each table moves to a new group in a “One Stray” protocol, teaching others what their team learned while bringing back new ideas to their original table. Suddenly the room is filled with conversation, collaboration, and collective learning rather than passive note-taking.

None of these strategies take significantly more time than standing in front of the room and talking.

They simply require more intentionality.

That’s the shift.

Instead of asking, “How can I get through everything on my agenda?” we begin asking, “How can I create a learning experience that models the kind of instruction I hope to see throughout my school?”

As leaders, we ask teachers every day to create classrooms where students think critically, collaborate, discuss ideas, and actively engage in learning. Faculty meetings, leadership retreats, and professional development sessions give us the opportunity to demonstrate that we believe those practices are just as valuable for adults as they are for students.

Our staff deserves the same intentionality.

One of the greatest opportunities instructional leaders have doesn’t happen during a classroom observation.

It happens when they walk to the front of the room and begin to teach.

The next time you’re planning a faculty meeting, leadership retreat, professional development session, or administrative meeting, don’t start with your slides.

Start by asking yourself these two questions:

• How much time do I need to set aside to make this more than just an information dump?
• What instructional practices do I want to intentionally model for my staff today?

Because long after people forget the agenda, they’ll remember how you led the learning.

Darrin Peppard Dr. Darrin Peppard

Dr. Darrin Peppard is an author, leadership coach, consultant, and speaker focused on organizational culture and climate, and growing emerging leaders. Darrin is the best-selling author of the book Road to Awesome, and is the host of the Leaning into Leadership podcast. As a ‘recovering high school principal’, Darrin shares strategies and lessons learned from 26 years in public education to help leaders gain clarity, find joy in their work, and walk in their purpose.