T9. Go back and check
Follow up on agreed actions. Accountability sustains improvement.
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 Go Back and Check toolkit to follow up consistently so actions are completed well and progress is sustained.
Step 5. Coach and practice: Use the Go back and check Coach and Practise Frameworks to strengthen the behaviour through reflection on follow-up, rehearsing revisiting commitments so accountability is 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
The Speed of Trust – Stephen M.R. Covey (2006).
This book deepens your practice by showing how follow-up builds credibility and strengthens accountability. Buy the book.
References from the Everyone Succeeds book
Locke, E.A. and Latham, G.P., (2002) Building a practically useful theory of goal setting and task motivation: A 35-year odyssey. American Psychologist, 57(9), p.705.