C1. Hold high standards
Set clear expectations and reinforce them consistently. High standards shape behaviour and culture.
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 Hold High Standards toolkit to define what “good looks like,” monitor it regularly, and act immediately when drift appears.
Step 5. Coach and practice: Use the Hold high standards Coach and Practise Frameworks to strengthen the behaviour through reflection on consistency and action steps that reduce tolerance of variation, practising the reinforcement of expectations so quality becomes the norm.
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
Leverage Leadership 2.0 by Paul Bambrick-Santoyo (2016).
This book supports the behaviour by showing how precise expectations and follow-up drive consistency, improvement and professional trust. Buy the book.
References from the Everyone Succeeds book
Whitman, D. (2008). Sweating the small stuff: Inner-city schools and the new paternalism. Thomas B. Fordham Foundation & Institute. Washington, DC.