Leading for Meaning: Making mandated PLD work through strategic Inquiry

When leaders engage in strategic inquiry, they identify how to implement any professional learning with their own learners, their own strengths, their own whakapapa in mind. They hold to the non-negotiables while adapting for place, people, and purpose.

That kind of leadership isn’t just good practice, it’s a professional and ethical responsibility.

Professor Helen Timperley has long argued that inquiry isn’t an add-on, it’s how professionals grow their evaluative thinking, shift beliefs, and improve outcomes. Similarly, Drs Judy Halbert and Linda Kaser remind us that inquiry, done well, is a whole-system leadership tool - grounded in relational trust and aimed at equity for all learners.

Leading in this way is not just a response to external requirements. It is a reclaiming of professional agency - one that allows leaders to navigate the current literacy and maths mandates with integrity. Not just fidelity to delivery, but a commitment to implementation integrity: adapting and embedding evidence-informed practice in a way that fits context, whakapapa and whānau.

I love this quote from Timperley:

…linear thinking usually ignores community cultures; students’ and teachers’ beliefs, motivations and emotions; the culture of the school; and how the school leaders promote professional learning together with the nature of the associated conversations

(p. 6 of Leading Professional Conversations, 2023)

Grounding: What It Looks Like in Practice

Across multiple schools, I’ve had the privilege of working long-term alongside leaders - walking with them through the real, relational work of embedding the Spiral of Inquiry as a way of leading, not just a framework to “do”.

What I’ve seen:

• Team cultures shift from compliance to ownership

• SLTs grow from “drivers” to facilitators of learning

• Teachers start to see inquiry not as something extra, but as how they lead learning

• Learner voice and whānau voice shape the focus, not just the outcomes

• Impact is seen through localised evidence, and changes in teacher identity

We’ve worked on aligning inquiry with strategic priorities. We’ve sat with discomfort, explored hunches about bias and belief. We’ve introduced coaching models to support reflective dialogue. And we’ve strengthened evaluative capability, so that conversations about impact aren’t surface-level, but grounded in evidence and curiosity.

This is how we honour Timperley’s call for deep, identity-based inquiry - not a rigid cycle, but an embedded stance.

The System Challenge — And Our Opportunity
There is no shortage of content in today’s PLD landscape. Refreshed curriculum priorities are important, and the PLD to support them is underway.

But too often, the PLD is not the entire problem people claim it to be - it’s the lack of leadership conditions to make it land.

When leaders are overwhelmed, unsupported, or disconnected from the strategic purpose, PLD becomes something to survive, not something to lead.

That’s why strategic inquiry matters more than ever. It brings coherence. It turns mandates into momentum. It connects kaupapa to context.

Russell Bishop, in Leading to the North-East, reminds us that equity cannot be achieved without relational leadership. That means leaders must not only know what to do, they must know how to lead change with mana, with courage, and with deep respect for the people in front of them. His thinking and knowledge aligns so well to the thinking in this post (see my summary of his recent keynote here

A Call to Principals, Leaders, and Facilitators
Let’s be honest: this is a tough time to lead. But it’s also a hopeful one.

What if we reclaimed professional inquiry - not as a burden, but as our lever?

What if we held space for both rigour and relevance?

What if we asked ourselves:

• What would it take to move beyond compliance, toward coherence and meaning?

• What will give our teachers the strength to carry this work forward with belief and purpose?

This is the work of leadership - not just implementing strategy, but leading change with integrity, curiosity, and heart.

Let’s keep asking: What’s going on for our learners?
And let’s keep answering: Not either/or. But AND.