Leading with Expectation and Care: Being a Warm Demander, and Your Next Search

There’s a persistent temptation in leadership work to believe strength and care are mutually exclusive: either you’re firm and “get things done,” or you’re kind and supportive and risk being seen as soft. In the best schools, these qualities are not opposites but partners. The leader who can hold high expectations while offering authentic human support (the “warm demander”) fosters a school culture where faculty and students stretch and sustain themselves. If you are seeking a new role, framing yourself as a balanced, warm-demander leader will serve you well; Boards want someone who can move strategy forward and be a true community builder.

A warm demander shows up with clear, relentless, expectations and engages in kind, empathetic, consistent, follow-through. You set standards around teaching and learning, performance, faculty practice, and norms of behavior, and then you support people to meet them through coaching, resources, and honest feedback. You are a visible presence in classrooms and meetings and show warmth through countless small interactions, but you also protect time for strategy, reflection, planning, and communication. You use data and hold people accountable to key goals while also being compassionate, listening deeply, and establishing an environment of psychological safety. You build high-trust routines and predictable, transparent processes for feedback and evaluation so everyone knows what success looks like and how to get there.

When you’re in a search process, demonstrate that you are a warm demander with specific evidence. Tell the story of a faculty member who improved under your coaching: name the goal, the support you provided, and the demonstrable outcome. Share trade-offs you made and why; Boards respect leaders who can weigh values and explain their choices. Language and behavior matter; replace blunt directives with partnership framing: “We will aim for X; here’s how we’ll get there, and here’s how I’ll support you,” and use data as a foundation to collaborate. Create a culture of feedback throughout the organization, and include yourself in this reflective process by seeking out genuine internal and external reviews. Normalize regular feedback cycles so conversations about growth become routine and formative rather than surprising and summative.

Being a warm demander requires both EQ and IQ, and is not a personality trait; it is a practice you can develop and show. As you prepare cover letters, candidate statements, and interview responses, center stories that combine care with measurable improvement. Boards are looking for leaders who will steward both mission and people without sacrificing either. Balance is not a static- steady state; it is the habit of returning to priorities, reflecting on values, being diligent, and showing up with clarity and compassion. 

Want to know more? Check out….

  • Becoming a Warm Demander (Educational Leadership , ASCD, March 2019) by Shane Safir. Safir translates the warm‑demander frame from classroom practice to instructional leadership, laying out concrete coaching moves and a three‑part leader stance (show strength; listen and affirm; challenge and offer choice). Her leadership books The Listening Leader (2017) and Street Data (2021, co-authored with Jamila Dugan) extend these ideas into practice, equity work, and school transformation, essential reading if you want language and evidence for how a head can be both demanding and deeply supportive. 
  • A Warm Demander Approach to School Leadership (Edutopia, Aug 26, 2024) by Jessica Cabeen. A principal’s first‑person account of operationalizing warm‑demander leadership across culture, data meetings, and recognition systems; useful for concrete examples you can adapt to a 90‑day plan or interview stories.