Reflections on Leadership Summit 2026
Leadership Summit 2026: Leading Conversations That Activate Agency
February 25–27, 2026 • AT&T Hotel and Conference Center • Austin, TX
Each year during Leadership Summit, we gather not just to learn, but to also pause, reflect, and consider how our leadership shows up in the everyday moments in ways that can shape our schools. This year, more than 100 leaders came together in Austin around a simple, but profound, question: What kinds of conversations activate agency in adults, and how do we need to grow as leaders to host them?
Starting with the Soundtrack of Leadership
On Wednesday, leaders began by building their leadership “soundtrack” and mapping their Agency Compass. This exercise helped us understand how our leadership stance impacts the ownership of learning among those we support. It also gave us perspective on how we are activating their agency – and what it sounds like when we aren’t.
We wanted to get clearer about our current approach to conversations. With time for self-reflection, we were able to examine the internal language, beliefs, and habits that shape how we show up in conversations every day. In hallways, in PLCs, in 1:1 meetings, and in moments of tension, our conversational moves signal far more than we realize. Our responses in conversation can either invite ownership and growth or unintentionally reinforce compliance.
Adult Agency Continuum
Thursday morning continued our learning through a text-based protocol and the Adult Agency Continuum. Leaders engaged in inquiry, dialogue, and collective sense-making. We located ourselves on the continuum, and reflected on how agency currently shows up in our leadership role and in our systems.
After diagnosing where we needed to grow on the Adult Agency Continuum through data, reflection, and dialogue, we selected one of two pathways aligned to the kind of conversational leadership we most needed to develop.
Pathway A
Pathway B
Conversations that Scaffold Growth
Conversations That Shift Mindsets
Knowing the choice itself was part of the design, it was impactful to hear leaders in both pathways leave with an understanding of how agency deepens when we understand our patterns and deliberately choose where to lean in.
“I appreciate how I learned how to be a better human in my role, and more importantly, how to show up better each day for my colleagues and students.”
Practicing Conversations in Trios
Thursday afternoon’s “Helping Trios” activity brought the learning into practice. Leaders entered a space of trust and took turns practicing real conversations to prepare when returning to schools.
For most leaders, the reality of leading “all the things” means we rarely give ourselves even five minutes to prepare for the conversations that matter most. In their trios, leaders had dedicated time to prepare, practice, get it right or get it wrong, and try again to refine our conversational leadership approach. Moving the work beyond a single difficult conversation, we posed a larger question: where could these conversational moves strengthen the systems leaders navigate every day?
The Importance of Storytelling
Thursday’s closing session offered a different kind of learning moment. NTN CEO Jim May delivered a keynote rooted in the relationship between storytelling, sensemaking, and leadership.
Drawing on neuroscience, personal narrative, and NTN’s own origin story, he explained that in a moment of sustained uncertainty, the most important work leaders can do is not simply manage change but help the people around them find meaning in it. Stories, he argued, are not decorative. They are how communities build theories about where they have been, where they are headed, and why the journey matters.
"You aren't just managing strategy, you are managing people's emotional and cognitive load. You aren't just managing an initiative, you are helping people locate meaning in that initiative. To tell a story about change is to build a theory about that change - why it's needed, how it might happen, and what the future might look like if you are successful. As author Tim O'Brien writes, ‘storytelling is the essential human activity and the harder the situation, the more essential it becomes.’ ”
Friday Morning Whole Group Reflections
Friday morning, leaders chose from three sessions designed to extend the week’s learning into specific dimensions of our practice.
The Building Relational Trust session explored trust as the foundation that makes every other conversational move possible, grounding us in the idea that without trust, even the most skilled coaching conversation reverts to compliance.
Listening Strategies invited leaders to examine how our listening stance shapes what we hear and how we respond, by slowing down not just how we interpret, but how we receive what others are saying.
And for the teacher-leaders in the room, the Conversations that Activate Student Agency session extended the week’s focus on conversational leadership into the classroom, offering practical structures for using dialogue to build student voice and ownership.
Each session reinforced a through-line that had been present all week: agency is not activated by a single conversation. It is built through the daily practices of trust, listening, and intentional dialogue that we carry into every interaction.
Looking Ahead
As we return to our schools and districts, the impact of Leadership Summit 2026 will not be measured by a single takeaway or strategy. Instead, its influence will live in the everyday conversations that follow – the ones in hallways, in team meetings, in coaching cycles, and in moments of uncertainty where leadership stance matters most.
We learned that when we become more intentional about how we listen, question, and respond, we do more than improve communication. We activate agency in the adults we serve.
And when adult agency grows, the conditions for student agency follow.
“I appreciate having time to reflect and think about my own leadership and how it impacts those that I lead.”