C3. Establish routines
Create predictable structures that support learning and behaviour. Strong routines reduce friction and increase focus.
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 Establish Routines toolkit to script, model, and embed the routines that create calm, predictable and high-performing environments.
Step 5. Coach and practice: Use the Establish routines Coach and Practise Frameworks to strengthen the behaviour through action steps that simplify behaviour and reduce decision fatigue, practising the embedding of routines so reliability frees attention for judgement.
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
Teach Like a Champion 3.0 – Doug Lemov (2021).
This text reinforces the behaviour by illustrating how disciplined, reliable action outperforms sporadic bursts of intensity. Buy the book.
References from the Everyone Succeeds book
Bambrick-Santoyo, P., (2018). Leverage leadership 2.0: A practical guide to building exceptional schools. John Wiley & Sons.
Lally, P., Van Jaarsveld, C.H., Potts, H.W. and Wardle, J., (2010). How are habits formed: Modelling habit formation in the real world. European journal of social psychology, 40(6), pp.998-1009.
Lemov, D., Woolway, E. and Yezzi, K., (2012). Practice perfect: 42 rules for getting better at getting better. John Wiley & Sons.