Are You Measuring What Really Matters?

Shifting from data overload to meaningful evidence

It was after a leadership team meeting—where all the data looked great—that a deputy pulled me aside and said: “Our numbers are strong, but the staff are exhausted. Something’s slipping—and I don’t think it’s showing up in the reports.”

That line stuck with me, because I’ve heard it before—too many times. We’re not ignoring culture, we’re just not measuring it. And when we don’t measure it, we assume it’s fine—until it’s not.

The comfort of counting

Education systems are data-rich.

• Attendance
• Suspensions
• Academic achievement
• Staff survey scores

We’ve been trained to manage what's visible. But as I unpacked in Leadership in Triage, schools often operate in crisis loops that reward fast reporting more than deep leadership. And as I shared in Glorifying Overwork, many leaders are quietly celebrated for burnout-level commitment, while no one asks what it’s costing the team underneath.

Here’s the truth: If we only measure what’s easy to count, we end up managing what matters least.

The challenge isn’t that we’re tracking the wrong things—it’s that we’re stopping there. With this in mind, let’s explore three truths that have reshaped how the most intentional school leaders I work with are measuring success.

Truth 1: Outputs ≠ Health

A school I consulted with had a comprehensive improvement dashboard—27 KPIs updated monthly. But when I asked, “How are you measuring trust in the leadership team?”, the answer was silence. Eventually someone said, “We just get a feel for that.”

That’s not unusual—it’s systemic. We’re conditioned to measure lagging indicators—data that shows up after the culture’s already shifted. But what drives the work isn’t test scores; it’s trust, engagement, and emotional energy.

Many leaders are celebrated for burnout-level commitment ... no one asks what it’s costing the team.

If you wait for the data to tell you the culture has shifted, you’re already behind, and research backs this. In a longitudinal study of leadership and wellbeing, Leithwood et al. (2020) found that staff perception of leader empathy and clarity was a stronger predictor of school health than most achievement data. Yet, that rarely makes it into improvement plans.

What the best leaders track looks different:

• Staff engagement in voluntary meetings
• Peer-to-peer collaboration outside of directives
• Emotional tone in briefings
• Energy—not just presence—in classrooms

This isn’t soft, it’s strategic. Because in every school I’ve worked with, the cultural breakdown always happened before the data did.

Truth 2: Misaligned metrics drive misaligned behaviour

One school I supported had recently revamped its coaching model. It was structured, system-aligned, and designed to improve consistency, but the unintended effect was this:

• Teachers planned for walkthroughs—not learning
• Feedback became checkbox-focused
• Risk-taking vanished

The walkthrough rubric had become the real curriculum. This is what Goodhart’s Law warns us about:

“When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.” (Goodhart, 1984)

Leaders weren’t ignoring growth; they were just accidentally engineering performance optics instead of real development. I explored this tension in The Trust Dilemma, where fear of being judged leads people to silence—not openness.

In the same way, misaligned metrics make teachers cautious, not curious. When what gets measured doesn’t match what’s valued, people learn to fake the metric—or stop trying.

Great leaders fix that by re-aligning:

• Design measures with staff, not for them
• Treat walkthroughs as dialogue, not data points
• Prioritise story over score—especially when trust is fragile

The result isn’t looser standards. Instead, it’s deeper ones, because now, you’re measuring what actually shapes the work—not just what’s easy to report.

Truth 3: What matters most is hard to count—but easy to feel

In a school that had been through two years of cultural drift, I asked the team how they were tracking recovery. They didn’t give me a spreadsheet. Instead, they said this:

“There’s laughter again. Staff bring ideas to meetings—unsolicited. People are walking in early, not dragging themselves in late.”

You can’t code that into a column. But it’s data, and it’s real.

If you wait for the data to tell you the culture has shifted, you’re already behind.

It’s what Maslach and Leiter (2016) called “engagement fingerprints”—the social and emotional signals of reconnected teams. What this leadership team did differently wasn’t revolutionary:

• They built in unstructured feedback moments
• They celebrated cultural micro-wins
• They paid attention to hallway conversations as much as classroom walkthroughs
• They noticed the things that mattered— even when the system didn’t ask them to.

Peter Senge (2006) argues that systems are shaped by what we choose to learn from—not just what we can measure. The most effective school leaders I know treat emotional tone, shared ownership, and staff confidence as non-negotiable indicators of success—whether or not they show up on a template.

Culture is data, too

We’re not measuring the wrong things; we’re just not measuring enough of the right ones. After all, achievement isn’t a standalone number. It’s the trailing indicator of:

• Connection
• Clarity
• Courage
• Safety
• Trust

The schools that grow don’t just analyse data—they feel it, listen to it, and lead from it. And the sooner we expand what we track, the sooner we start building systems that serve the people inside them—not just the ones reading the reports.

That’s exactly why I created the Culture of Excellence Snapshot—a diagnostic tool designed to measure not just outputs, but the six strategic drivers of a thriving school culture:

1. Realising Purpose and Vision
2. Continuous Learning and Development
3. Empowerment and Agency
4. Engagement, Achievement, and Well-being
5. Efficiency and Adaptability
6. Community and Stakeholder Engagement

Unlike traditional compliance tools, the Snapshot surfaces blind spots in trust, vision, agility, and autonomy—providing the kind of data that actually drives strategic leadership. It’s not just a survey, it’s a mirror—reflecting what matters most before it becomes a problem that’s too late to fix. Because the culture you build today is the condition your students and staff will be working in tomorrow.

Ready to lead beyond the metrics?

This is exactly what we explore in the Professional Wellness Workshop—a free space I’ve created for leaders ready to shift from performance to presence.

When you register, I’ll also send you an advance copy of my new book:Culture of Excellence: The Path to Empowered Teaching, Inspired Learning, and Intentional Leadership

What’s one metric you’ve stopped using—or one you wish you could start?

References

Goodhart, C. A. E. (1984). Problems of monetary management: The UK experience. In Courakis, A. S. (Ed.), Inflation, depression, and economic policy in the West (pp. 111–146). Rowman & Littlefield.

Leithwood, K., Azah, V. N., Harris, T., Slater, C., & Jantzi, D. (2020). Principal leadership and teacher wellbeing: The role of trust, equity, and capacity. Educational Administration Quarterly, 56(5), 746–784. https://doi.org/10.1177/0013161X20952858

Maslach, C., & Leiter, M. P. (2016). Burnout: A multidimensional perspective. In Burke, R. J., & Cooper, C. L. (Eds.), The fulfilling workplace (pp. 77–96). Routledge.

Senge, P. M. (2006). The fifth discipline: The art and practice of the learning organization (Rev. ed.). Doubleday.