Jennifer Abrams 
In this 2017 Deep End column, Jennifer Abrams describes the balancing act new teacher leaders face when they must be collegial with peers and also make sure the work gets done. A section added below looks at what research says about giving feedback to peers, and adds a simple structure for the harder conversations.
I spent some time with teacher leaders over the last 2 weeks. Many are new, and find themselves swimming in The Deep End for the first time. One of the challenges they may have in their new role is to both be collegial with their colleagues and at the same time making sure all of them get their work done. It is a tricky balance. Many say teachers are nurturing. Teachers got into the business to support the development of children. So it is doubly hard for some when they become teacher leaders and now are asked to work with adults and then to hold them responsible too! I have worked with some who cannot reconcile the roles. For them, it is just too challenging.
It is possible to be assertive in your role as a leader and to show humility and concern. It isn’t an either/or proposition. It is a yes/and moment. It is possible to show both care and accountability. Think of it as a seesaw or a level in construction. We move too far in the direction of accountability and our colleague tips off the other side. Being too caring and we tip-off and take ourselves down by not speaking up and most likely doing the work yourself. Instead, we need to understand that both are doable – care and accountability.
How do we do both?
Clarity first. Are you sure that everyone involved is aware of the expectations? Sometimes, we think we are being explicit, but perhaps we need to offer more specificity; about deadlines, responsibilities, roles, projects, etc. We often gloss over the details and simply say, “Get it done.” Or “figure it out and get back to me,” without explaining what should be done and what the timelines are. We are much clearer with students. Adults should just know better, right? Not always.
Coach second. Don’t jump to anger. Become allocentric and other-focused. Ask questions, such as “Given this is something that we need to get done, do you need any supports?” “Is there something I can do to help you move this forward?” Seeing how the challenge is being seen by the other person and what the obstacles are might help others move forward.
After a few coaching moments, move toward direct statements, and continue to consider how you can be both humane and growth-producing in this conversation. State your concern with facts and watch your adjectives and adverbs. Did I really need to say the person is “deliberately” doing this action or that the person is “too obsessive?” Be ready with some answers of what should happen next and how you can help.
What if you have been clear with expectations, you have come to conversations with a coaching stance and then you have spoken up in humane and growth producing ways, and it still isn’t working? Might you need to bring in someone else? Might it be better heard from another colleague? Or might someone listen to someone in a different position and with more authority? Sometimes you alone as teacher leader might not be the right person for the conversation.
A perfect outcome may not always be possible. You have shown care all the way through. Accountability has been scaled up over a few conversations. Maybe it just isn’t your conversation to have or you need to seek guidance from others who have more responsibility. You haven’t failed. You worked both ends of the polarity as best you could. Some conversations require another step beyond you, and that is okay. The good news is you didn’t tip the scale and send someone flying with extra accountability and you didn’t let them off the hook with too much empathy. The balancing act is a tricky thing to hit correctly.
The good news is that you are dealing with professionals. Generally speaking, if you treat teachers like professionals, they will act like professionals. You have demonstrated compassion while remembering to lay out instructions in a thorough manner. And a little bit of confidence goes a long way – confidence in yourself and your abilities, and confidence in your teachers to want to work things out in a professional, positive manner. These are the tools that you need. So don’t worry. Just jump in and start paddling. That’s what swimming in The Deep End is all about.
Giving feedback to peers: how teacher leaders hold colleagues accountable and stay caring
Jennifer Abrams writes above that it is possible to be assertive and to show humility and concern, and that care and accountability can be held together. Many new teacher leaders find this harder in practice than in principle, because giving feedback to peers means speaking to people who were colleagues the week before. Research on teacher leadership describes the same difficulty, and it also offers some ways through it.
The trust paradox
In a 2011 article in Learning Forward’s Journal of Staff Development, Melinda Mangin and Sara Ray Stoelinga point out that instructional teacher leaders usually hold a nonsupervisory role and gain teachers’ trust by remaining peers. The authors call this a paradox: to keep that trust, teacher leaders tend to downplay their expertise and avoid what the article calls hard feedback, meaning an honest critique that challenges a teacher’s preferred practice and may cause some professional discomfort. They argue that this avoidance undermines the work of improving instruction. They also note that teacher leaders often have little experience of giving this kind of feedback, because they rarely saw it done or received it as classroom teachers. This fits Abrams’s observation that being too caring can leave a leader not speaking up and doing the work alone.
What the wider evidence says about peer feedback
A 2020 systematic review by Brady Ridge and Alyson Lavigne in Education Policy Analysis Archives examined 38 documents, about 92 percent of them peer-reviewed empirical articles, on peer observation and feedback. The authors call it a promising practice for instructional improvement that lacks sufficient evidence, and name time as the main barrier, especially in U.S. schools. In plain terms, peer feedback appears worth doing, the research does not yet say exactly which model works best, and schools need to protect time for it.
A structure for the direct conversation
Abrams advises stating concerns with facts and watching adjectives and adverbs. The Center for Creative Leadership describes a well-known way to do this, called Situation-Behavior-Impact. In its August 2025 article, the Center gives the steps as follows:
- Situation: name the specific setting where the behavior happened, without vague timing.
- Behavior: describe only what was observable, without opinions or judgments.
- Impact: explain the effect on you, in your own terms.
- Intent: ask the other person what they were trying to achieve, and listen.
The Center reports that its research found the approach reduces anxiety about giving feedback and reduces the recipient’s defensiveness, and that employees rated managers as more effective when they gave feedback more often. This research comes from workplaces in general and not only schools, so teams should treat it as a useful starting point and check how it works in their own building. The fourth step matches Abrams’s advice to coach by asking what supports a colleague needs.
How the steps fit together
The order Abrams gives and the order in the Center’s model reinforce each other. Clarity comes first, because a colleague cannot meet an expectation that was never stated. Questions come next, so that the leader learns what the obstacle is. A direct statement based on observable facts follows if the pattern continues. Bringing in someone with more authority is the last step, and Abrams says it is acceptable and not a failure, because some conversations belong to someone else.
What a school can decide
- Write down, for each teacher leader role, what feedback is part of the job. Mangin and Stoelinga’s point is that the school culture needs to expect it, so that a leader is not asked to start the conversation alone.
- Offer practice before the first hard conversation, for example rehearsing with a coach, since teacher leaders often have little experience with it.
- Set aside protected time, because Ridge and Lavigne find time is the main barrier.
- Agree on a path for when feedback does not work, including who steps in and how.
Subscribe to edCircuit to stay up to date on all of our shows, podcasts, news, and thought leadership articles.
Related reading
More on edLeaders
