Leadership is Teaching: You’re Always in the Classroom
Hosts: Ed Schaefer and Andy Siegmund
Episode: 27 (Season 2, Episode 13)
Runtime: Approximately 65 minutes
Release Date: July 28, 2026
Website: leadershipexploredpod.com
Episode Description
In this follow-on to their “Reading Is Leading” conversation, Ed Schaefer and Andy Siegmund make the case that leadership and teaching are inseparable — and that the most consequential curriculum your team is enrolled in isn’t the one you designed. It’s the one running through your behaviors, your patterns, and your responses when pressure is highest. Most leaders put effort into only one layer of teaching and leave the other two entirely unmanaged, which is where drift, dependency, and disengagement quietly take root. Ed and Andy break down all three layers — the explicit, the developmental, and the implicit — and argue that the obligation to keep learning sits underneath all of them.
The conversation moves from vision and strategy (why stating it once is an announcement, not a lesson) to the harder work of teaching people how to think rather than just what to do. Andy shares a sharp example of a CFO who trained an entire deal team to ask the right questions simply by being consistent — no formal instruction required. Ed works through why leaders default to giving answers, why that creates dependency over time, and why patience is the hidden prerequisite for making the shift. Both hosts are direct: the short-term cost of coaching someone through their reasoning is real, but the long-term compounding benefit makes it one of the highest-return investments a leader can make.
The implicit curriculum section is where the episode gets most pointed. Ed examines what a late-night email actually teaches, what the phrase “one throat to choke” signals regardless of intent, and why what a leader does in a crisis is what their team learns the values actually are. Ed and Andy both draw on Marcus Aurelius and Seneca to ground the obligation to keep learning — not as a nice-to-have, but as a discipline. The episode closes with four concrete tactics you can run this week: audit your implicit curriculum, shift one answer to a question, teach the why behind a current priority, and learn something visibly from someone on your team.
In this episode, Ed and Andy Discuss
Why leaders are always teaching — whether they intend to be or not
The difference between announcing a vision and actually teaching it
How to teach people to think, not just what to think
Why giving answers creates dependency while asking questions builds capability
The hidden curriculum embedded in everyday leader behaviors and language
What phrases like “one throat to choke” are actually teaching your team
Why sending emails at 11PM communicates more than a no-pressure disclaimer ever can
The obligation to keep learning — and why stopping makes your teaching go stale
Four concrete tactics leaders can use immediately to become more intentional teachers
Episode Highlights
⏳ [00:00] – Ed opens with a reframe: the moment you took on a leadership role, you stepped into a classroom
⏳ [02:10] – Andy reflects on the leaders who shaped him most — and why the best ones blended deliberate instruction with modeling by example
⏳ [04:30] – Ed shares that most leaders he’s worked under taught him what not to do — a common but underexamined leadership failure
⏳ [06:50] – Andy makes the case for the selfish side of teaching: upskilling your team directly reduces your workload and improves retention
⏳ [10:15] – Ed breaks down why vision and strategy require deliberate, repeated instruction — not a single all-hands announcement
⏳ [14:40] – Andy explains why corporate strategy always risks sounding like clichés, and why that’s a structural communication problem, not laziness
⏳ [18:20] – Ed draws the line between repeating a message louder and actually teaching for comprehension
⏳ [22:55] – The conversation shifts to teaching people how to think — why answering every question creates bottlenecks and stunts your team
⏳ [27:30] – Andy shares a real example of a CFO who trained an entire team to ask the right question preemptively just by being consistent
⏳ [31:10] – Ed explains why patience is the hidden prerequisite for shifting from answer-giver to question-asker — and why leaders chronically undervalue the long-term payoff
⏳ [35:45] – The implicit curriculum: what late-night emails, crisis reactions, and phrases like “one throat to choke” are actually teaching your team
⏳ [42:00] – Andy describes how he explicitly tells his team why he works odd hours — and how that transparency itself becomes a lesson in boundary-setting
⏳ [47:20] – Ed connects Marcus Aurelius’s private journaling practice to the discipline of closing the gap between your intentions and your actual behavior as a leader
⏳ [51:00] – Ed’s warning: leaders who stop learning don’t just go stale — they implicitly teach their teams that arrival is the goal
⏳ [57:30] – Ed closes with four tactical challenges to run this week, from auditing your implicit curriculum to learning something visibly from someone on your team
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