Y8. Sharpen your tools
Continuously develop your skills and knowledge. Learning sustains excellence.
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 Sharpen Your Tools toolkit to keep learning, develop professional expertise, and invest in the skills that sustain effective leadership.
Step 5. Coach and practice: Use the Sharpen your tools Coach and Practise Frameworks to strengthen the behaviour through action steps that build skill and knowledge, rehearsing continual learning so competence keeps growing.
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
Mindset – Carol Dweck (2006).
This text deepens your practice by exploring how a growth mindset fuels continuous learning and professional improvement. Buy the book.
References from the Everyone Succeeds book
Covey, S.R. (1989) The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change. New York: Free Press.
Newport, C. (2016) Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World. London, Piatkus.