Codified Leadership: Behaviours and Habits that Make a Difference in Schools Caroline Sherwood and Andrew Finney
What’s it about?
Codified Leadership is a down-to-earth, thoughtful exploration of what effective school leadership actually looks like in practice. It recognises that leading a school isn’t about lofty slogans or one-off strategies. It’s about habits, behaviours and making smart, informed choices every day in complex, ever-changing environments.
The central message is clear: better leadership is possible, but it takes purposeful action. The book offers a leadership model that breaks down what great leaders do into visible behaviours, core habits, and specific knowledge that can be developed over time. It’s designed to give leaders a shared language, a clear structure and, crucially, a way to get better together.
Who’s it for?
This book is especially useful for headteachers, deputy heads, middle leaders and those supporting leadership development in schools. It speaks to leaders who want to improve their practice and help others grow, whether they’re just starting out or already well established in their roles. If you’re involved in CPD, line management, or leadership coaching, it’s a highly useful resource.
What’s inside?
The book is organised around two types of leadership insight. Inspired by Alan Watts’ metaphor of the torch and the floodlight, the authors split the book into two parts. The “floodlight” shines on the big, observable leadership behaviours that others see and experience daily. The “torchlight” zooms in on the deep, often invisible domain-specific knowledge that leaders need to develop to solve complex problems in schools.
Section One focuses on:
Trust, clarity, accountability, vision, vulnerability, and legacy
Habits and behaviours that can be observed, coached and improved
How leadership shows up in day-to-day interactions with staff, students and communities
Section Two focuses on:
Building and applying deep knowledge in your own context
How curriculum, assessment, staffing, and data intersect with leadership
The importance of adapting leadership style to shifting school contexts
The diagrams are particularly helpful. They show how leadership behaviours, habits and knowledge interact within a school’s specific setting. This visual approach makes the ideas easy to grasp and great for using in leadership team discussions.
What we liked
This is a practical book. It’s grounded in the reality of school life and doesn’t talk down to its readers. It takes complex leadership theory and translates it into something useful and useable.
What stands out:
The clear focus on codifying behaviour so that leaders know what to practise
Emphasis on habits like clarity, trust and accountability, with practical strategies to build them
The contextual model, which helps leaders understand that what works in one place may need to shift in another
A balanced use of research and real-world application, drawing on writers like Covey, Lencioni, Coyle and Brené Brown
It also champions collaborative development. Leaders are encouraged to read it with colleagues and coach one another to improve practice.
Any areas for improvement?
The core model is robust and transferable, but more examples from a wider range of school settings would enhance it. It tends to draw most heavily on primary and secondary mainstream contexts. Leaders in special schools, alternative provision or very small settings may need to adapt the ideas more consciously.
How could you use it?
This book lends itself to lots of different professional development formats. You could:
Use it as a framework for leadership coaching
Read one chapter at a time with your SLT or middle leaders
Use the visual models as discussion prompts during CPD
Focus in on specific behaviours as part of performance development planning
It’s also a book you can dip in and out of, depending on the challenges you’re facing right now. It’s structured flexibly so you don’t need to read it cover to cover to get value from it.
Final thoughts
Codified Leadership offers a thoughtful, usable and well-structured way of thinking about school leadership. It’s ideal for leaders who want to get better, not just at what they do, but at how they do it. The message is hopeful and practical: better is possible, but it takes intention, action and reflection.
A valuable read for any leader who’s ready to grow and help others do the same. This will be a well-thumbed book on many desks before long. Highly recommended.