S8. Find the lead measures
Identify the actions that drive outcomes. Tracking the right inputs helps improvement become predictable rather than reactive.
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 Find the Lead Measures toolkit to identify the specific, influenceable actions that most reliably drive your outcomes and track them with discipline.
Step 5. Coach and practice: Use the Find the lead measures Coach and Practise Frameworks to strengthen the behaviour through reflection on what predicts success and action steps that make progress visible, practising the identification and tracking of lead indicators so effort stays focused on what drives outcomes.
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 4 Disciplines of Execution – Chris McChesney et al. (2012).
This text strengthens your behaviour by clarifying how predictive actions drive outcomes, helping you identify where your effort will make the most significant difference. Buy the book.
References from the Everyone Succeeds book
Bryar, C. and Carr, B., (2021). Working backwards: Insights, stories, and secrets from inside Amazon. Pan Macmillan.
McChesney, C., Covey, S., & Huling, J. (2012). The 4 disciplines of execution: Achieving your wildly important goals. Simon and Schuster.