L2. Be positive
Approach challenges with optimism and belief. Positivity shapes energy and mindset.
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 Be Positive toolkit to reinforce the behaviours, actions, and attitudes that lift morale and create a culture of optimism and belief.
Step 5. Coach and practice: Use the Be positive Coach and Practise Frameworks to strengthen the behaviour through action steps that reframe challenge and coaching questions about tone, rehearsing grounded optimism so energy is sustained.
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 Progress Principle – Teresa Amabile & Steven Kramer (2011).
This text strengthens your practice by explaining how celebrating small wins fuels motivation, resilience and team culture. Buy the book.
References from the Everyone Succeeds book
Avey, M. M., Carsten, J. C., & Bono, J. E. (2018). Effects of positive leadership and flow on employee well-being through the PERMA lens. Austin Journal of Psychiatry and Behavioural Sciences, 3(1), 1-11.
Seligman, M. E. P. (2011). Flourish: A very human perspective on happiness. Free Press.