T8. Create actions
Turn discussion into clear next steps. Action drives progress.
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 Create Actions toolkit to turn discussion into precise next steps with clear owners and timelines.
Step 5. Coach and practice: Use the Create actions Coach and Practise Frameworks to strengthen the behaviour through action steps that turn discussion into commitment, rehearsing clear next steps so momentum is sustained.
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
Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done – Larry Bossidy & Ram Charan (2002).
This text strengthens the behaviour by explaining how to turn conversations into clear, owned next steps that move work forward. Buy the book.
References from the Everyone Succeeds book
Carter, D. and McInerney, L. (2020) Leading Academy Trusts. Woodbridge, UK: John Catt.
Collins, J., (2009) How the mighty fall: And why some companies never give in. Random House.
Gollwitzer, P. M. (1999). Implementation intentions: Theory and empirical verification. Zeitschrift für Psychologie, 234(4), 213-223.
Locke, E. A., & Latham, G. P. (1990). Goal setting: A motivational theory that works. Organisational Behaviour and Human Decision Processes, 45(1), 117-130.
McChesney, C., Covey, S., & Huling, J. (2012) The 4 disciplines of execution: Achieving your wildly important goals. Simon and Schuster.
Steel, P. (2007). The procrastination equation: How to create a sense of urgency to enhance self-control. Psychological Bulletin, 133(1), 65-94.