The PLC Facilitator’s Dilemma: Leading Peers Without Losing Trust
Before working as an Education Program Manager at an ed-tech company supporting districts and schools in implementing an AI-based learning platform, I spent years as an instructional coach in a large urban school district. One of my main responsibilities was implementing schoolwide PLCs. I often joke that I got “three chances” to learn how to do it well because each school taught me something different.
I went into my first implementation with enthusiasm and structure. I had data protocols, agendas, and norms ready to go. I knew what effective PLCs should look like. What I didn’t understand yet was how the adults in the system needed support to bring that vision to life.
My second attempt was better, but still not transformational. Teams met regularly. They completed agendas. But the work lacked depth. Conversations didn’t connect back to instruction in a meaningful way, and we weren’t seeing clear shifts in student outcomes. Something was still missing.
It wasn’t until my third schoolwide implementation that the real breakthrough came. Two things made all the difference.
First, school leaders needed to do their own PLC work.
It wasn’t enough for administrators and instructional coaches to observe PLCs or read team notes. They needed their own regular time to examine evidence of their PLCs’ effectiveness, identify barriers, calibrate expectations, and reflect on how their leadership decisions were shaping (or limiting) collaborative work. When the leadership team functioned as a PLC about the PLCs, everything else strengthened.
Second, teachers needed explicit training and ongoing support to become effective PLC facilitators.
This was the piece I had underestimated for years. It’s easy to identify strong teachers. It’s harder to remember that even the strongest teachers have rarely been taught how to facilitate adult learning. And facilitation is a skill. One that must be taught, coached, and supported.
Once those two structures were in place, leadership PLCs and facilitator training, the shift was immediate. Conversations deepened. Teams became more focused. Accountability increased naturally. And for the first time, we started to see real movement in student learning data as a result of PLC work.
Across the country, teacher leadership is expanding. PLCs have become a pillar of instructional systems, and principals are increasingly asking strong teachers to step into facilitator roles. On paper, this seems perfectly logical. Teachers collaborating with teachers. What could be simpler?
But anyone who has ever facilitated a PLC knows how complex it really is.
Leading peers is one of the most delicate, nuanced roles in a school. The facilitator must guide instructional decisions, support data use, redirect when necessary, and maintain focus, all while staying mindful of relationships, professional dynamics, and the unspoken politics of working alongside colleagues.
And in many schools, facilitators are asked to do this with little or no support.
Why Peer Leadership Is So Challenging
What makes facilitation so difficult isn’t the content. It’s the context. Teachers are used to leading students, not peers. And the moment a teacher becomes a facilitator, the social dynamics of the team shift.
Suddenly, the facilitator is no longer “just a colleague.” They’re a peer with an added layer of responsibility. That can blur boundaries in uncomfortable ways.
On more than one occasion, facilitators confided in me that they felt caught in the middle. They were expected to uphold a schoolwide vision while trying not to alienate the colleagues they ate lunch with every day. One facilitator described redirecting a team member as “walking a tightrope while juggling knives.” She wasn’t wrong.
Facilitators also fear damaging relationships. When a colleague is going off-topic, or dominating discussion, or resisting a change in practice, redirecting them is incredibly uncomfortable. Many facilitators lean toward avoiding conflict, which is understandable, but it stalls the work.
Then there’s the issue of authority. Facilitators carry responsibility but not formal power. They must influence through credibility, consistency, and relationships not through title or evaluation authority. This is admirable but difficult.
Add to that the internal doubt that nearly every facilitator experiences: “What if I lead us in the wrong direction?” “What if someone challenges me and I don’t know what to say?” It becomes clear why teacher-leaders need support, not assumptions.
Why Leaders Want Teachers Facilitating PLCs
School leaders know that teacher-led collaboration is more effective than directives handed down from administration. Teachers trust their peers. They value the perspectives of those who share their day-to-day realities. A strong facilitator can bring out the best in a team, create shared ownership, and ensure PLCs don’t become compliance-driven.
When teacher leadership is done well, it improves culture, strengthens instruction, and creates a sustainable foundation for improvement.
But, and this is key, being asked to lead is not the same as being prepared to lead.
Too often, strong teachers are asked to facilitate PLCs without the tools, training, or support needed to be successful.
The Leadership Misstep: “Just Meet as a PLC”
One of the most common missteps I’ve seen, and I’ve seen it in every school I’ve ever supported, is when leaders assume that teachers automatically know how to collaborate deeply.
A leader sets the schedule, hands the team an agenda, and says,
“You’ll meet every Tuesday during your common plan.”
And then they’re surprised when the PLC:
loses focus
becomes dominated by one or two voices
avoids conflict
turns into planning time
gets stuck in logistics
doesn’t analyze student evidence in meaningful ways
When I reflect on my early coaching years, I now see that I was making the same mistake. I assumed that teachers would know how to work as a PLC simply because they were teachers.
But collaboration is a skill. Facilitation is a skill. Data analysis is a skill. Leading adult learning is a skill.
And none of these skills are taught in teacher preparation programs.
When leaders treat PLCs as something teams can “figure out on their own,” facilitators are set up to struggle, no matter how competent they are.
What Happens When Facilitators Aren’t Supported
When facilitators lack guidance and leadership partnership, the impact shows up quickly.
Teams become inconsistent. Meetings drift. Accountability becomes uneven. Tension grows, often silently. Facilitators begin questioning themselves, and sometimes question whether the effort is even worth it.
One facilitator I worked with told me, “I feel like everyone’s frustrated with me, even when I’m doing exactly what I’ve been asked to do.” That comment stayed with me. It is impossible to lead confidently if you don’t know whether leadership truly has your back.
And when facilitators feel isolated, PLCs stagnate. Stagnation isn’t because teachers don’t care, but because the system wasn’t built to support the work.
What Effective Peer Facilitation Requires
Over the years, I’ve learned that successful PLC facilitation hinges on just a few core elements, but each must be intentional.
Effective facilitators need a clear purpose. They need to know what their team is working toward, why it matters, and how the work connects to student learning.
They need clearly defined roles. Without clarity, peers fill in the gaps with assumptions—and assumptions almost always create tension.
They need trust. Trust is earned through consistency, neutrality, and integrity.
They need structured processes. Norms, protocols, agendas, and shared roles aren’t “extras.” They are what keep facilitation from becoming personal.
And most importantly, facilitators need a genuine partnership with school leadership. They need calibration, encouragement, visibility, and protection when the work gets hard.
When any of these pieces are missing, the PLC struggles. When all of them are in place, the PLC thrives.
The Reality of the Work
I’ve seen teams where one person spoke so much that others shut down, not because they didn’t have ideas, but because they didn’t feel they could get a word in. A facilitator trained to use structured turn-taking and norms changed that dynamic in just two meetings.
I’ve seen teams spiral into venting about behaviors or initiatives until the work felt pointless. Facilitators who learned to acknowledge emotion and gently redirect to the student evidence helped those teams regain purpose.
I’ve seen facilitators feel dismissed or undermined by their peers, only for the dynamic to shift entirely once administrators publicly reinforced the facilitator’s role.
And I’ve seen data conversations go sideways when someone felt personally judged. Clear protocols and a focus on student evidence transformed those moments from conflict to clarity.
These aren’t just scenarios. They are real moments that determine whether a PLC becomes transformative or transactional.
The Leadership Connection: Facilitators Cannot Do This Alone
Every strong facilitator I’ve ever worked with had one thing in common: they were supported.
Not just encouraged but consistently supported.
Leaders protected PLC time. They reinforced expectations. They coached facilitators through difficult moments. They attended PLCs, especially early in the year, to model the importance of the work. They made calibration a priority. And importantly, they did their own PLC work as a leadership team.
When facilitators know leadership is behind them, they take risks. They hold teams accountable. They guide deeper conversations. They lead with confidence.
When they don’t, they protect relationships at the expense of progress, and the PLC stops moving.
Influence Over Authority
The facilitator’s dilemma is real. Facilitators are asked to guide, support, redirect, and hold teams accountable without positional power. They must lead through influence, not authority.
But with the right structures and support from leadership PLCs to facilitator training to ongoing coaching can help teacher-leaders navigate this dilemma with confidence.
And when they do, PLCs stop being “meetings” and start becoming the engine of schoolwide improvement.
If we want strong PLCs, we must invest in the people leading them.
In an upcoming article, I’ll dig deeper into what school leaders can do to intentionally train and support their teacher-leaders as PLC facilitators. I’ll share practical strategies for setting facilitators up for success from day one, including how to build a yearlong facilitator support plan, how to structure leadership PLCs that keep a pulse on the work, and how to create systems of accountability that strengthen, not strain, collaborative cultures. I’ll also highlight common mistakes leaders make when rolling out facilitation roles and what to do instead.
If your facilitators are doing this work without clear training, partnership, and support, you won’t want to miss it.
