How teachers teach depends on their motivations, capacities, and the conditions under which they work. If the conditions in which they work are not supportive and caring, teachers have less incentive to teach at peak levels. As such, students who do not have supportive and caring classrooms have less incentive to perform and learn at levels at which they might be capable.

Based on a groundbreaking study of "soft conditions" (i.e. supportive relationships, school climate) and their effects on teachers' work, well-known author, Kenneth Leithwood, offers for school leaders a path toward building this important and often hidden infrastructure of quality teaching. School leaders will learn how to craft the conditions that support all their teachers so that teaching and learning, the work of schooling, can be conducted at maximum levels.