L3. Get the steps in
Be visible around the school. Presence builds relationships and understanding.
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 Get the Steps In toolkit to increase your visibility, strengthen relationships, and stay connected to the real work happening across the school.
Step 5. Coach and practice: Use the Get the steps in Coach and Practise Frameworks to strengthen the behaviour through reflection on presence and everyday visibility, practising being seen where it matters so leadership feels connected and real.
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
In Search Of Excellence: Lessons from America’s Best-Run Companies – Tom Peters and Robert Waterman Jr (1982).
This book deepens your understanding by showing how visible leadership presence builds connection, insight and shared purpose. Buy the book.
References from the Everyone Succeeds book
Bambrick-Santoyo, P. (2018). Leverage leadership 2.0. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Cohen, J., McCabe, E. M., Michelli, N. M., & Pickeral, T. (2009). School climate: Research, policy, teacher education and practice. Teachers College Record, 111(1), 180-213.
Hallinger, P., & Murphy, J. (2013). Running on empty? Finding the time and capacity to lead learning. NASSP Bulletin, 97(1), 5-21.