Speaker · Author

Read the Terrain

Leadership Under Real Conditions

I help leaders build systems that hold up when the ground stops cooperating… not the ones that only look good on a slide. (Anyone can lead on a paved road.)

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Laura K. Spencer on stage with a microphone, presenting Lead From Where You Stand

Ways to work together

One idea. Four ways in.

I work where leadership theory runs into the messy parts of real organizations. The systems that buckle under their own weight. The quiet failures nobody names until they get expensive. I build the version that survives the room, not the version that impresses it.

02 Advise

Strategy with your team

For the hard call: a rollout, a redesign, a tool everyone is arguing about. We read the ground first, then design the decision.

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03 Read

The book

Read the Terrain: eleven patterns of leadership under real conditions.

Get the book →

04 Write

Essays

Leadership, systems, and what the trail keeps teaching me about both.

Read the writing →
Before You Adopt AI, Ask These Four Questions

The keynote

The decision is leadership, not tech.

You’re applying thoughtful design to the topic du jour. This could and should be something every team walks through right now.

Scott Schimmel
President, The YouSchool

The points you’re making are legit the heart of the matter.

Dan Kasper
Co-Founder and CEO, Piloteer AI

Good design isn’t the version that impresses the room. It’s the version that survives it.

Read the Terrain · Substack

Where I think out loud

Essays on leadership, systems, and what the trail keeps teaching me about both. No spam, no funnels. Just the actual thinking.

You Can’t Lead a Cat Like a Dog

Treating people the way I want to be treated only works if they want the same things I do.

Read on Substack: You Can’t Lead a Cat Like a Dog

The Cost of Misplacing Capable People

This is how organizations lose their strongest thinkers without ever losing the person.

Read on Substack: The Cost of Misplacing Capable People

The Ghost Hours

This is how leadership is dismantled. It isn’t a loud failure in a meeting.

Read on Substack: The Ghost Hours

What people say

Floored at how the design of your slides invites us to re-arrange how we think about adopting new tech. Like Scandinavian architecture: sparse, with depth and clear purpose.

Juventino Gutierrez
Instructional Manager

A few of the stages

  • ISTE
  • CALIE, California Association for Leading Innovation in Education
  • Association of California School Administrators
  • Tech & Learning Regional Leadership Summits
  • LEAP Innovations Modern Learning Network
  • The AI Show at ASU+GSV
  • San Diego County Office of Education
  • Forward, powered by OCDE
  • Saddleback Valley Unified School District
  • Clark County School District
  • Insight Jam
  • Meta Reality Labs
Laura K. Spencer smiling, leaning on the open door of her Land Rover on a sandy trail

Next step

Got a stage, a team, or an offsite that needs more than a generic leadership talk?