S3.Seek the brutal facts
Face reality honestly, even when it is uncomfortable. Clear decisions are built on evidence, not assumptions or wishful thinking.
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 Seek the Brutal Facts toolkit to confront reality honestly, identify the gap between hope and truth, and act with clarity and purpose.
Step 5. Coach and practice: Use the Seek the brutal facts Coach and Practise Frameworks to strengthen the behaviour through disciplined questioning and reflection on evidence, assumptions, and blind spots, rehearsing the surfacing of uncomfortable truths calmly so decisions are grounded in reality rather than optimism or avoidance.
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
Good to Great – Jim Collins (2001).
This book strengthens your practice by showing how confronting reality enables better decision-making, helping you lead with honesty, optimism and clarity. 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). Random House.
Collins, J.C., (2006). Good to great and the social sectors: A monograph to accompany good to great. Random House.