S4. Uphold values
Keep core values at the centre of decisions and behaviour. When values guide action, trust and consistency follow.
Resources to support growth in this behaviour
Whether this behaviour has been chosen through Step 1. Diagnose, highlighted through reflection or coaching, or identified as a school or trust priority, you can now follow the steps below to develop and embed it in your daily leadership practice.
Step 2. Learn: Read Everyone Succeeds: 54 Leadership Behaviours to Transform Your School to understand what great leadership looks like in practice. Each behaviour is grounded in research and real examples from schools and businesses.
Step 3. Reflect: Use the Everyone Succeeds Workbook to apply ideas to your own context.
Guided reflection, practical actions, and space for planning turn understanding into improvement.
Step 4. Apply: Work through the Leadership Toolkit for this behaviour. Use the Uphold Values toolkit to test whether decisions align with your values and to share stories that make those values visible in daily practice.
Step 5. Coach and practice: Use the Uphold values Coach and Practise Frameworks to strengthen the behaviour through action steps that clarify non-negotiables and coaching questions about consistency under pressure, practising value-led decision making so standards hold firm when situations are difficult.
These can be used individually or with colleagues to embed key behaviours.
Step 6. Plan: Set measurable goals using the 90 Day Leadership Planner.
Turn improvement into action by tracking your focus and progress over time, with completed examples for different career stages.
Step 7. Lead: Apply your learning to real situations through the Scenario Finder.
Over fifty scenarios link directly to the behaviours that help you solve the challenges that matter most in your school.
One book suggestion
The Advantage – Patrick Lencioni (2012).
This text supports the behaviour by demonstrating how values shape healthy organisational culture, helping you use them as a filter for decisions and expectations. Buy the book.
References from the Everyone Succeeds book
Coyle, D. (2018). The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups. Bantam.
Hargreaves, A. and Fullan, M., (2015). Professional capital: Transforming teaching in every school. Teachers College Press.
Lencioni, P.M., (2012). The advantage: Why organisational health trumps everything else in business. John Wiley & Sons.
Robinson, V. M. J. (2011). Student-Centred Leadership. Jossey-Bass.
Schein, E. H. (2016). Organisational Culture and Leadership. Wiley.