Field Guides - Leader In Me

“The Field Guide is a game-changer. It gives us a clear roadmap for bringing Leader in Me to life in classrooms every single day.”

— Juley Sexton, Principal, A.B. Combs Elementary

What happens when professional learning ends?

Teachers leave the workshop energized. Then the school year happens — the schedule fills up, new challenges surface, and the distance between what was learned and what’s being practiced starts to grow. Not because teachers don’t care. Because without a consistent resource to return to, implementation is hard to sustain.

That’s exactly what the Professional Learning Field Guide is built to solve.

Core 1 through Core 3 and every year after. One guide built for the whole journey.

Leader in Me isn’t something your school finishes — it’s something your school becomes. The Core workshops build the foundation, but the real work is what happens in between sessions and long after the final Core workshop: in classrooms, in coaching conversations, in the daily practice of a school that leads at every level.

The Field Guide is the resource your staff reaches for during Core 1 and keeps reaching for ten years in — a structured, practical companion for every educator, at every stage of your Leader in Me journey.

Available for Early Learning, Elementary, and Secondary.

Not a participant manual. A field guide.

There’s a real difference. A participant manual is useful on the day of the workshop. A field guide is what you pull out when you’re in the middle of the work — when you need to know where you are, what comes next, and how to get there.

The Field Guide mirrors the Leader in Me Framework — six tabbed, color-coded strands across Leadership, Culture, and Academics, with all 15 Highly Effective Practices covered one at a time. Whether your staff is stepping into Core 1 for the first time or deepening implementation years down the road, they can open to the practice they’re working on right now and find exactly what they need.

Everything your staff needs, all in one place.

Foundations

The Student Leadership Portrait, the Leader in Me Framework, and a 7 Habits® Quick Reference — so every educator starts from the same shared foundation and can return to it anytime.
Highly Effective Practices
Fifteen dedicated sections, each built around a single practice, with:
- A clear definition and learning target
- Video implementation tips
- Research Insights that connect the why to the what
- Guided explore questions and curated resource previews
- Notes pages for real-time reflection
Application Challenge

The Paradigms and Practices Self-Assessment — an individual rubric aligned directly to the Lighthouse Rubric. Scannable and honest, it helps educators see exactly where their practice stands and what growth looks like at the next level.
Action Plan & Notes

A Measurable Results Table and action-planning forms grounded in the core paradigms — so growth is documented, directed, and tied to the results your school is already working toward.

Built for every stage of the journey.

Whether your staff is brand new to Leader in Me or years into a deep implementation, the Field Guide meets them where they are:

Full staff professional learning days
New staff onboarding
Coaching conversations
Leadership team planning
Ongoing reflection and implementation support

It works across every modality too — in-person workshops, live online sessions, or on-demand modules. And it pairs with Professional Learning On Demand on Leader in Me Online, so learning that starts in the workshop can continue at any pace, any time.

Designed with the details that matter.

This guide was built to be used — not filed away. Every physical detail was considered:

Durable craft paper cover — designed to be carried, written in, and opened hundreds of times
Coated, tabbed strands — built to hold up over years of daily use, not just a single school year
Level-specific colors and icons — so Early Learning, Elementary, and Secondary guides are immediately distinguishable
Tested construction — coil weight, paper stock, cover extension, and binding were all refined to match the quality of the best educator planners on the market

The digital version is available too. But educators who’ve used the printed guide consistently reach for it over the screen — because writing in the margins, flagging pages, and building a personal record of your practice over time is something a PDF can’t replicate.

Protect your Leader in Me investment this year.

Every teacher deserves the tools to lead with confidence. The Field Guide ensures that the learning your staff experiences in the workshop lives on in every classroom, every day.

Questions? Contact your Education Success Partner or email us at [email protected]

Equip My Teachers

Leader in Me Field Guides

Give Every Teacher the Same Foundation for Success