Primary Scope: Staff whose primary day-to-day focus is on personal practice and individual contribution—such as Early Career Teachers, Classroom Assistants, Admin Officers, Receptionists, Estates, and Finance/HR Assistants.
Integrated Practice: Universal for all staff and leaders. This is the foundational daily habit layer—no leader ever outgrows self-leadership, integrity, and personal accountability.

Overview: Leadership at this stage is demonstrated through deep self-awareness, emotional intelligence, and individual accountability. It is the foundation of all leadership, where you model core values in your daily conduct.

Framework Focus Areas:

• What Leaders ARE: Focus on moral courage and ensuring personal conduct directly reflects the organisation’s moral mission.
• What Leaders KNOW: Focus on deepening self-awareness, understanding stress responses, and maintaining robust statutory/safeguarding knowledge.
• What Leaders DO: Focus on taking ownership of tasks, seeking and acting on feedback, and building reliability.

Reflective Prompts for Practice:

Have I been honest with myself and others about a mistake I made recently, or did I prioritise protecting my image over the truth?

When my workload intensified today, did I pause to evaluate how my personal stress response might be perceived and felt by those working directly alongside me?

When a task fell short of excellence this week, was my initial instinct to make excuses or to take immediate responsibility for driving a solution?

Primary Scope: Anyone leading, co-leading, or guiding a team. This includes HLTAs, Subject Leads, Phase Leaders, Mentors, Working Party Chairs, Office Managers, and Site Supervisors.
Integrated Practice: Practiced by operational and strategic leaders when working directly with teams, and by individuals when stepping in to co-lead a project, facilitate a meeting, or support colleagues.

Overview: Marks the shift from individual excellence to driving collective team impact. You exercise leadership by supporting colleagues, sharing expertise, and fostering psychological safety so every voice is heard.

Framework Focus Areas:

• What Leaders ARE: Focus on building trust and demonstrating loyalty by prioritising collective goals over individual recognition.
• What Leaders KNOW: Focus on understanding social/emotional needs and adapting communication styles for team cohesion.
• What Leaders DO: Focus on coaching, resolving conflicts constructively, and aligning team strengths around shared objectives.

Reflective Prompts for Practice:

When a colleague disagreed with a standard practice this week, did I explore their view with curiosity, or did I use my position to defend the status quo?

Is there a quiet or underrepresented voice in my team meetings that I need to intentionally invite into the conversation to ensure collaborative decision-making?

Once a senior or collective decision is finalised, do I fully support and communicate it with energy, even if it wasn’t my original preference?

Primary Scope: Middle Leaders, Operations Managers, Assistant Headteachers, Phase Leaders, School Business Managers, Head of Estates and Facilities, Trust HR/Finance Managers.
Integrated Practice: Engaged by strategic leaders overseeing operational delivery, and by team leaders when refining day-to-day workflows or mitigating staff workload friction.

Overview: Focused on the systems and processes that deliver organisational excellence. You translate high-level policy into seamless daily practice so standards remain consistently high while mitigating staff workload friction.

Framework Focus Areas:

• What Leaders ARE: Focus on delivering high-quality education and developing shared ethical accountability across teams.
• What Leaders KNOW: Focus on mastering organisational systems, using data/evidence effectively, and building domain expertise.
• What Leaders DO: Focus on refining systems to remove operational barriers and optimise workload through intelligent process design.

Reflective Prompts for Practice:

Is there an operational process in my area that is highly ‘efficient’ on paper, but inadvertently creating an unseen barrier for a specific group of children or staff?

Are there any systemic ‘shortcuts’ currently being tolerated in our school processes that compromise our long-term ethical commitment to equity?

When operational friction or resistance arose during our process change today, did I look past the surface behaviours to analyse the hidden triggers related to fairness and workload equity?

Primary Scope: Headteachers, Deputy Heads, Trust Directors, Senior Executives, Chief Operating Officers (COO), Chief Finance Officers (CFO), Trust Directors of HR/Estates/IT.
Integrated Practice: Drawn upon by operational leads involved in multi-year planning, resource allocation, or trust-wide working parties.

Overview: Focuses on the long-term health, culture, and direction of the school or organisation. Leadership here is about aligning resources, succession planning, and people with our overarching mission to transform lives.

Framework Focus Areas:

• What Leaders ARE: Focus on modeling resilience and unwarranted optimism, ensuring ethical standards govern strategic choices.
• What Leaders KNOW: Focus on navigating local/national contexts and aligning organisational design with long-term vision.
• What Leaders DO: Focus on articulating a compelling vision, nurturing talent pathways, and securing institutional sustainability.

Reflective Prompts for Practice:

Am I making strategic choices based on what is easiest for the organisation’s reputation right now, or what is truly right for our children’s future?

In our strategic planning, am I being completely transparent with our stakeholders about the trade-offs we are making, or am I managing the narrative to avoid challenge?

Does our multi-year strategic plan demonstrate a clear, financially backed commitment to the specific children who need our support the most?

Primary Scope: CEOs, Executive Headteachers, Regional/National Educational Leaders, Trust Board Members.
Integrated Practice: Exercised by leaders participating in cross-school networks, civic partnerships, or regional educational advocacy.

Overview: The widest point of influence, focusing on civic responsibility and community-wide social justice. It is about building a sustainable legacy that serves generations to come beyond your own school gates.

Framework Focus Areas:

• What Leaders ARE: Focus on mission-driven leadership and challenging systemic inequalities across the broader region.
• What Leaders KNOW: Focus on leveraging external partnerships, multi-agency networks, and civic connections for lasting change.
• What Leaders DO: Focus on advocacy, cross-sector partnership building, and deploying collective expertise for wider social impact.

Reflective Prompts for Practice:

How am I using my system-level influence and networks to challenge regional status quos and fight for underserved children across our wider community?

Does my leadership across our wider network reflect a legacy of genuine civic service, or is it subconsciously driven by corporate or institutional ego?

How is our organisation’s baseline of kindness and equity being actively felt by the most economically or socially struggling families in our wider community?