S5. Establish collective goals
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 Establish Collective Goals toolkit to unite staff around one or two goals that matter most and ensure everyone sees how their work contributes.
Step 5. Coach and practice: Use the Establish collective goals Coach and Practise Frameworks to strengthen the behaviour through structured planning actions and reflection on ownership and alignment, rehearsing goal-setting with others so commitment is shared rather than imposed.
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
Measure What Matters – John Doerr (2018).
This book helps you put the behaviour into action by showing how clear goals and measurable key results create focus, alignment and disciplined improvement. Buy the book.
References from the Everyone Succeeds book
Doerr, J., (2018). Measure what matters: How Google, Bono, and the Gates Foundation rock the world with OKRs. Penguin.
Lencioni, P.M., (2012). The advantage: Why organisational health trumps everything else in business. John Wiley & Sons.
McChesney, C., Covey, S. and Huling, J., (2012). The 4 disciplines of execution: Achieving your wildly important goals. Simon and Schuster.