Leading Innovation Through Interruption: Nudging Practice in Learning Environments

This chapter considers how school leaders can amplify improved teacher practice within innovative learning environments through positioning change as a practice of professional becoming. Rather than positioning large-scale structural change as the sole driver of improvement, we argue that small, intentional adjustments, such as action research and co-design, can be equally effective in shifting practice and culture. We conceptualise leadership through the notion of education as an ‘interruption’, highlighting how disruption becomes generative when leaders create spaces where teachers’ assumptions are unsettled and re-examined, creating pathways for deeper self-awareness and integrated professional identity. By situating practice within the Competency Cycle, where learners move from unconscious incompetence to unconscious competence and aligning these with principles of adult learning, we argue that leadership is less about managing change than about cultivating the dispositions, relational trust, and accountability that enable teachers to inhabit uncertainty productively. Methodologically, the chapter integrates insights from two school vignettes that provide illustrative examples of how leaders can mobilise space, pedagogy, and relationships in concert to scaffold teacher learning and embed sustainable change. Our contribution lies in reframing leadership of innovative learning environments as an intentional practice of noticing, nudging, and cultivating conditions for growth. By bridging spatial design, pedagogical strategies, and psychosocial climates, we demonstrate how leaders can foster cultures of curiosity, equity, and collective efficacy. In doing so, we position leadership as central to ensuring that investments in learning environments translates into meaningful improvements in teaching and learning.