S9. Leverage marginal gains
Pursue small, consistent improvements. Over time, marginal gains combine to create significant impact.
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 Leverage Marginal Gains toolkit to capture small improvements, track their impact, and build a culture where tiny changes lead to big results over time.
Step 5. Coach and practice: Use the Leverage marginal gains Coach and Practise Frameworks to strengthen the behaviour through coaching questions about small improvements and disciplined follow-up, rehearsing the spotting and stacking of tiny gains so improvement becomes cumulative.
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
Dave Brailsford’s case studies on British Cycling.
These examples deepen the behaviour by showing how small, disciplined improvements compound into transformational results.
References from the Everyone Succeeds book
Hardy, D. (2010). The compound effect: multiplying your success, one simple step at a time. New York: Vanguard Press.