Y6. Prioritise what matters
Align time and energy with purpose. Intentional prioritisation drives results.
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 Prioritise What Matters toolkit to identify the tasks that have the greatest impact and protect time for deep work.
Step 5. Coach and practice: Use the Prioritise what matters Coach and Practise Frameworks to strengthen the behaviour through coaching questions about focus, rehearsing deliberate choices so time aligns with values.
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 7 Habits of Highly Effective People – Stephen Covey (1989).
This text strengthens the behaviour by showing how to focus on high-value work, reduce distraction and invest in long-term impact. Buy the book.
References from the Everyone Succeeds book
Collins, J. (2001) Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t. London: Random House Business.
Covey, S.R. (1989) The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change. New York: Free Press.
McKeown, G. (2014) Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less. London: Virgin Books.
Newport, C. (2016) Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World. London: Piatkus.