School leadership, made visible
Great leadership is not a mystery. It is 54 codified behaviours you can see, practise and improve.
Everyone Succeeds breaks school leadership into 54 observable behaviours across five domains. Find out where you are strong, choose what to work on next, and get the tools to make it stick.
Five domains, 54 behaviours
Where are you strong? Where could you grow?
Every leader has domains where they shine and others that get less attention. You might be excellent at culture and less good at looking after yourself. Improvement starts with knowing which is which.
Strategy
Setting direction, choosing priorities and making change stick.
Culture
The standards, routines and moments that shape daily life in school.
Leadership
How you show up, follow through and set the example every day.
Teams
Building, running and holding to account the teams you lead.
Yourself
Sustaining your own energy, focus and habits so you can lead well.
Try it now
See exactly what you get
Three ways in, open to everyone.
C1 Hold High Standards, in full
Every resource for one behaviour, exactly as members get it for all 54.
- The C1 Playbook: toolkit, coaching prompts, practice script and 90-day plan
- An INSET PowerPoint to lead a session with your team
- Eight completed Playbooks, from a primary head to a trust leader
Stuck on something right now?
Start from the situation, not the theory. Pick the challenge you are facing and see which behaviours help, with worked examples.
- A difficult meeting with a parent or carer
- Supporting a struggling colleague
- Never getting to the work you came in to do
Find out where you are strong and where to grow
Ten minutes, all 54 behaviours, and a report on your strengths and next steps, waiting on your own leadership desk. Members can then add a 360 from colleagues and get the combined report, which sets how you see yourself beside how others see you. It is often the most telling report of all.
How it works
Diagnose. Learn. Lead.
A simple cycle that turns good intentions into habits, for one leader or a whole team.
Diagnose
Start with the free self diagnostic. Add a 360 from colleagues, then read the combined report to see where your view and theirs agree and differ. Pick up to three behaviours to focus on.
DiagnosticsLearn
Go deep on each behaviour with the book, workbook, Playbooks, toolkits and worked examples from real schools.
LearnLead
Turn it into action with commitments, a 90-day plan and regular review, so improvement is deliberate and it lasts.
LeadFor members
Your leadership desk
One place that keeps your development moving between the busy weeks.
- Your self diagnostic, 360 and combined reports, ready to print or save
- Focus behaviours and the commitments you make
- 90-day plans built from the Playbooks
- Your journey over the year, so you can see progress
- The ES Coach to talk real situations through, ending with one clear commitment
New for members
Meet your ES Coach
Bring a real situation from your week. Your ES Coach asks the right questions, draws on the Playbook for the behaviour that fits, and helps you leave with one clear commitment, saved to your desk.
- Asks before it suggests, one question at a time
- Uses the 54 behaviours and their Playbooks
- Private to you: no one at your school sees it
Who it is for
Leaders at every stage
The same 54 behaviours, whether you lead a class, department, school or trust.
Early career and aspiring leaders
Build the habits that great leadership rests on and start using them with confidence.
Middle leaders
Lead curriculum, team culture and everyday decisions with more clarity.
Pastoral leaders, SENDCos and DSLs
Lead safeguarding, inclusion and pastoral culture while supporting complex needs.
Senior leaders
Sharpen strategic focus and build consistent leadership across the school.
Headteachers
A coherent way to lead culture, strategy and people, and to grow your leaders.
Trust and system leaders
One shared language of leadership across all your schools.
Schools, trusts and local authorities
One shared language of leadership
When every leader works from the same 54 behaviours, conversations about leadership get sharper and improvement spreads.
- One sign-up link, and every leader gets their own login
- Headteacher and trust overviews that only ever show combined results for groups of five or more
- Anonymous colleague feedback and staff surveys
- An annual leadership cycle and guides for introducing it in a school or a trust
Built from exceptional schools
Everyone Succeeds comes from observing hundreds of leaders in exceptional schools across the UK and USA. Every behaviour is drawn from what those leaders actually do, and grounded in the research.
What leaders say
What leaders say about Everyone Succeeds
As someone who has written several books on school leadership, it is an absolute delight to be able to say that this book from Steve is quite simply on another level. Rigorously rooted in the fundamentals of excellent everyday practice, it manages to codify school leadership in a way I just haven’t seen before. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
Andy BuckFounder of Leadership Matters and BASIC 4 Schools
Born from one of the most transformed schools I have seen, this is a detail-rich guide to exceptional school leadership. Steve combines passion, precision and purpose to equip leaders to create meaningful transformation in their own schools.
Tim RutherfordDeputy CEO, Ted Wragg Multi-Academy Trust
In a sector often overwhelmed by noise, Everyone Succeeds offers clarity. Steve has created a practical and highly readable framework that keeps leadership rooted in people, purpose and culture. This is a book that will resonate with leaders at every level because it understands both the complexity and humanity of school leadership.
Evelyn Forde MBEExecutive Consultant, Author and Keynote Speaker
A rare leadership book that does two things at once: it’s rigorously grounded in what we know about organisational effectiveness, and it’s genuinely readable. Steve turns big ideas into crisp, everyday leadership moves; brought to life through stories that stick.
Tyler HesterFounder and CEO, Educators Thriving and Vice Principal, Michelle Obama School
This is a distinctive, thoughtful and meaningful contribution to our system and our understanding of what works. Steve and his colleagues have built a brilliant school in Torquay and this is a generous insight into how they have done it. I would recommend wholeheartedly.
Ed VainkerManaging Director, Reach Foundation and co-founder and former Principal of Reach Academy Feltham
Everyone Succeeds brings rare clarity to school leadership. By identifying and codifying the behaviours that make the biggest difference, Steve gives leaders a practical framework they can use to improve their impact every day. It is a book leaders will return to repeatedly as they refine their practice and develop others around them.
Kieran EarleyExecutive Coach and Former CEO, The British School in the Netherlands
Steve’s work is a gamechanger as it provides a systematic process for leadership improvement harmonising research with lived experience. You are never alone with a leadership problem as the inbuilt coaching framework and tips will provide energy and support.
Tim HarrisHeadteacher, Colyton Grammar School
The books
Read it, then do it
Everyone Succeeds
54 leadership behaviours to transform your school. Each behaviour explained with the research, the stories and the everyday moves that make it work.
About the book
The Workbook
Reflection, practice and planning for every behaviour, for your own development or to work through with your team.
About the workbookStart with one behaviour
Open C1 and see everything a member gets, or talk to us about bringing Everyone Succeeds to your school.