#21 Building a Coaching Culture in International Schools with Kai Vacher

Send us Fan MailEpisode SummaryThe way we communicate shapes everything—our relationships, our culture, and our collective growth. In this episode, we explore these ideas with Kai Vacher, Principal of the British Schools of Muscat and Salalah.As a long-serving school leader, Kai recognised that traditional performance management approaches weren't creating meaningful professional development. His school community asked a powerful question: What if we equipped everyone with the skills to have better conversations?The answer sparked a four-year transformative journey involving multi-level training, collaborative learning, and ongoing evaluation to measure real impact.What ChangedThe school now has a culture where staff have genuine agency over their professional growth, trust runs deep across all levels, reciprocation and support are the norm, and relationships strengthen through intentional, skilled dialogue.From Concern to InnovationKai shares how the school moved from concerns about ineffective performance management systems to building skilled dialogue and deeper trust. Through individual coaching, mentoring, and team coaching, these communication skills became embedded in daily practice. Staff now learn together and actively shape a process that builds engagement, innovation, and professional agency.Advice for School LeadersKai offers three practical recommendations for leaders considering coaching to develop dialogue quality:Be curious - Read extensively, explore recommended books, research, and podcastsExperience coaching yourself - Find a coach with good chemistry and discover what the relationship offersTrain alongside your team - Engage in coach training together, explore new skills and tools, and deepen how you relate to each otherAcknowledgmentsKai credits the inspiration and support of David Porritt, Ave Peetri, Linda Berlot, Nicolas McKie, and insights from Tony Blair, Brené Brown, Alex Ferguson, John Gottman, and Simon Sinek.This isn't just about coaching—it's about creating an environment where how we communicate fundamentally changes how we work together.