Dr. Brad Johnson, #2 Global Guru in Education
Relational Leadership
Build the Kind of Leadership People Want to Follow
Educational leadership and corporate keynote speaker Dr. Brad Johnson helps leaders build trust, strengthen engagement, and create people centered cultures where individuals feel seen, valued, trusted, and motivated to do their best work.
Your People’s Experience Shapes Their Performance
Great leaders take care of the people who take care of the mission.
When people do not feel trusted, valued, or supported, engagement suffers. Talented people leave. Those who stay can become exhausted, disconnected, and less invested in work they once cared deeply about.
In education, Brad puts it this way: “The teacher’s working environment is the student’s learning environment.” The same principle applies across organizations. When you create an environment where your people can thrive, they are better equipped to serve the students, customers, colleagues, and communities who depend on them.
Brad challenges leaders to look beyond programs, policies, and performance and bring leadership back to its most important element.
People.
Through his approach to relational leadership, Brad helps leaders understand how people experience their leadership and build the relationships, trust, and culture that allow people to do their best work.
Leadership Is a People Business
Meet Dr. Brad Johnson
Educational leadership speaker, author, and expert in relational leadership
Brad has experienced education from nearly every side. He spent approximately a decade as a classroom teacher before moving into administration, serving in roles that included curriculum, assistant principal, and principal. He later earned his doctorate and taught graduate level leadership to future educational leaders.
Today, he brings those experiences together with research, psychology, practical leadership strategies, and stories that connect with educators.
Brad is known for saying what educational leaders sometimes need to hear, while giving them practical ways to do something about it. His work challenges leaders to look beyond managing people and instead consider how they know them, build them up, add value, believe in them, and trust them.
His down to earth, story driven approach has connected with educators around the world because Brad is not talking about leadership from the outside.
He has lived it.
Keynotes That Change How Educators Think, Lead, and Connect
Whether he is addressing educational leaders, classroom teachers, or an entire district, the goal is not simply to create an inspiring moment.
It is to give people something meaningful to carry back into their work.
- The 5 Habits of Highly Relational Leaders
- Dear Teacher: The Cost of Caring
- Building the Bridge to Brilliance
- Leadership ReWired
Relational Leadership Reaches Beyond Education
Great leadership is built on human relationships, regardless of the organization.
Brad’s work on relational leadership and Leadership ReWired also translates to corporate and organizational audiences navigating employee engagement, workplace culture, trust, team morale, retention, leadership development, and change.
His message helps leaders understand how people experience their leadership and create the human conditions where people can do their best work.
From the Stage to the Page
Ideas That Keep Working Long After the Keynote Ends
Brad is the author of numerous books exploring educational leadership, teachers, relationships, personal growth, and school culture.
His work includes Putting Teachers First, Dear Teacher, Dear School Leader, Principal Bootcamp, Finding Your Leadership Edge, Becoming a More Assertive Teacher, Room 212, and Coffee With the Custodian.
Like his keynotes, Brad’s books make meaningful ideas accessible through practical strategies and memorable stories.
What Audiences Are Saying
Better Schools Start With How We Lead the People Inside Them
- You want great teachers to stay.
- You want educators who are engaged in their work.
- You want a culture built on trust instead of exhaustion, disconnection, and simply getting through another school year.
- And you want students learning from teachers who still believe deeply in what they do.
That starts with leadership.
Bring Dr. Brad Johnson to your next education conference, leadership event, or district gathering and give your audience a new way to think about the relationships that shape your schools.