A School Leader's Playbook for Tough Conversations - Paperback

The toughest conversations in school leadership finally have a playbook.

As a school leader, there is no escaping tough conversations. We enter the profession to make a difference for students, but our impact depends on how skillfully we communicate with adults.

Long-time educational leaders and authors of Connecting Through Conversation: A Playbook for Talking with Students, Erika Bare and Tiffany Burns offer practical tools and field-tested strategies for the hardest adult conversations--especially those tense moments with staff, caregivers, and colleagues that feel heavy, live rent-free in our heads, and keep us up at night.

This playbook gives you a clear, step-by-step guide for navigating the toughest conversations with care, clarity, and confidence. You'll learn how to address poor performance, de-escalate conflict, stay grounded when emotions rise, prepare for high-stakes conversations, and coach adults in ways that strengthen both performance and culture. Inside, you'll find frameworks, scenarios, planning tools, and sentence stems you can use immediately. This book is packed with resources to help you expertly navigate the moments that matter most by increasing your efficacy, improving relationships, and strengthening culture. It may even help you sleep better at night.