S13. Aspire to greatness
Set bold ambitions for staff and students. High aspirations lift expectations and performance.
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 Aspire to Greatness toolkit to define a bold, inspiring long-term goal and create milestones that build momentum and belief.
Step 5. Coach and practice: Use the Lead for lasting excellence Coach and Practise Frameworks to strengthen the behaviour through coaching questions about long-term impact and disciplined standards, practising the balance of urgency with sustainability so excellence endures.
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
Built to Last – Jim Collins & Jerry Porras (1994).
This book deepens the behaviour by showing how consistent, reinforcing actions generate long-term momentum and cultural change. Buy the book.
References from the Everyone Succeeds book
Collins, J.C. and Porras, J., (2005). Built to last: Successful habits of visionary companies. Random House.
Locke, E.A., Shaw, K.N., Saari, L.M. and Latham, G.P., (1981). Goal setting and task performance: 1969-1980. Psychological Bulletin, 90(1), p.125.
Sullivan, D. and Dr Benjamin Hardy (2023). 10x Is Easier Than 2x. Hay House, Inc.