Everyone Succeeds
54 behaviours to transform your school
Great school leadership is often talked about, but rarely defined. Leaders are told to be strategic, inspiring, visible, or calm under pressure, yet very little time is spent explaining what those things actually look like in practice.
Everyone Succeeds exists to solve that problem.
This book codifies 54 specific leadership behaviours that define exceptional school leadership in action. Drawing on close observation of highly effective leaders, academic research, and real school practice, it offers a clear, shared language for understanding what great leadership actually looks like, day to day, in real schools.
Rather than focusing on personality, style, or abstract theory, the book focuses relentlessly on behaviour. The things leaders do, say, prioritise, and repeat. The actions that shape culture, influence teams, and ultimately improve outcomes for pupils.
What the book gives you
For each of the 54 behaviours, the book helps you to:
• Understand why the behaviour matters and what problem it solves
• See what effective leadership looks like in practice, not just in theory
• Recognise common misconceptions and ineffective versions of the behaviour
• Apply the behaviour consistently within your own role and context
• Build a shared leadership language across your school or trust
The behaviours are organised into five practical domains: Strategy, Culture, Leadership, Teams, and Yourself. This gives you a clear picture of what effective leaders actually do from day to day, and how those actions connect to stronger schools and better outcomes for students.
Who the book is for
Everyone Succeeds is written for leaders at every stage of their journey, including:
• Aspiring and new middle leaders
• Heads of department and pastoral leaders
• Senior leaders and assistant principals
• Headteachers and executive leaders
It supports individual reflection and growth, while also providing a framework that leadership teams can use together to align expectations, improve consistency, and develop others with clarity and confidence.
Part of a wider leadership framework
The book sits at the heart of the Everyone Succeeds leadership cycle, supporting the learning stage by building deep understanding of the behaviours that underpin effective leadership.
Alongside the workbook and online tools, this book forms a simple, practical cycle for leadership growth: Diagnose, Learn, Lead.
Two companion books to help you lead with clarity, purpose, and measurable impact
As someone who has written several books on school leadership, it is an absolute delight to be able to say that this book from Steve Margetts is quite simply on another level. Rigorously rooted in the fundamentals of excellent everyday practice, it manages to codify school leadership in a way I just haven’t seen before. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
It is rare to find a leadership resource that so brilliantly encapsulates, with example after example, what great middle and senior leadership in schools looks like, complete with activities and reflections that have been tried and tested in practice. This workbook is an incredibly powerful companion to the “Everyone Succeeds” leadership book, also published by Cadogan Press.
About the Steve Margetts
Steve has been the Principal at Torquay Academy since January 2014. During this time, he has been privileged to work with exceptional leaders, teachers, and support staff who have helped to transform the school into the school of choice for the local community, while significantly improving outcomes for the girls and boys who attend.
His interest in leadership began early in his career. He completed a Postgraduate Diploma in School Leadership before taking up his first leadership role and later returned to academic study to complete an MBA in 2023.
Steve has visited many schools across the UK and the USA, meeting inspirational leaders working at every level. Influenced by Doug Lemov’s approach to codifying great teaching, he set out to fill a gap in the literature by identifying, naming, and explaining the behaviours that define highly effective school leadership.
His work on Everyone Succeeds is driven by the belief that great leadership can transform schools and the lives of the students they serve. He is committed to giving leaders practical tools and a shared language that help them grow, collaborate, and create lasting change.