Leadership Competency Model Examples: Key Frameworks Compared
Most organisations that decide to build a leadership competency model spend more time arguing about what to call things than understanding what they are actually trying to build. The result is usually a framework that borrows liberally from whatever the most senior person in the room last read.
There are dozens of published leadership competency model examples in circulation. Some are research-backed, some are commercially derived, and some are assembled from intuition and convention. Understanding what the major ones actually contain, how they differ structurally, and what choices they reflect is the first step toward making a sensible decision about your own.
What Is a Leadership Competency Model?
A leadership competency model is a structured set of behaviours, skills, and attributes that define what effective leadership looks like in a given context. It describes the observable patterns of action associated with leadership performance, not personality traits or vague character descriptors.
The model typically specifies clusters or dimensions of competency, the specific behaviours that indicate each one, and, in more sophisticated versions, the level of proficiency expected at different leadership tiers.
Why Leadership Competency Models Exist
The problem they solve is consistency. Without a shared definition of leadership effectiveness, organisations make hiring, promotion, and development decisions based on subjective assessments that vary by manager, function, and moment in time. Two people can both be labelled "strong leaders" by their respective managers for entirely different reasons.
A leadership competency model creates a common reference point. It specifies what the organisation believes leadership is, at a level concrete enough to observe and assess, rather than left to individual interpretation. As peer-reviewed research from Sage Journals has identified, incongruences across global leadership competency models often stem from the fact that different frameworks embed different assumptions about what leadership is fundamentally for, whether coordination, transformation, culture-building, or something else entirely.
How the Major Frameworks Are Structured
Korn Ferry Leadership Architect
The Korn Ferry Leadership Architect is one of the most widely used commercial frameworks. It organises 38 competencies into four factors: Thought, Results, People, and Self. Each competency is described through a set of skilled behaviours, unskilled behaviours, and overdone behaviours, which makes it unusually useful for development conversations.
The framework includes a separate set of "career stallers and stoppers", behaviours that derail otherwise capable leaders, which is a feature most in-house models omit entirely. The Lominger model, from which Korn Ferry Leadership Architect was developed, used a similar structure and much of the underlying research still informs the current version.
The practical advantage of Korn Ferry is depth. The 38 competencies are well-differentiated, and the behavioural anchors are specific enough to use in structured assessment. The practical disadvantage is size. Thirty-eight competencies is a lot to communicate, and most organisations that license the framework select a subset of 8 to 12 for active use.
DDI Success Profiles
Development Dimensions International (DDI) takes a slightly different structural approach. Its Success Profile framework distinguishes between threshold competencies, which most leaders need to operate at a minimum standard, and differentiating competencies, which separate high performers from the rest.
This threshold-differentiating distinction matters more than it might appear. A threshold competency does not predict superior performance; it just prevents failure. DDI's framing forces organisations to be specific about what they actually need to predict, rather than simply listing everything that seems desirable.
DDI also publishes regular norm data from its leadership assessments, which allows organisations to benchmark their leaders against a broader population. This gives the framework a practical grounding that purely internal models lack.
SHRM Behavioural Competency Framework
The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) publishes a competency framework with Leadership and Navigation as one of its eight core competencies. SHRM defines it as the ability to direct and contribute to initiatives and processes within the organisation, and the behaviours attached to it cover influence, change navigation, credibility building, and conflict management.
What is notable about the SHRM model is that it frames leadership as a competency within a professional role, not as a standalone framework. This reflects a different philosophy: leadership is one capability among many, not a separate domain requiring its own taxonomy.
CIPD Profession Map
The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) Profession Map includes a leadership strand within its broader framework for people professionals. The CIPD model distinguishes between specialist knowledge and behavioural indicators, and its treatment of leadership focuses on purpose-led, values-driven practice rather than hierarchical authority.
This reflects CIPD's positioning: its framework is built for a professional community, not a general managerial population. The leadership behaviours in the CIPD map are calibrated to the specific context of HR and people practice, which makes it highly relevant for that group and less transferable to general management roles.
Public Sector Frameworks
Several national public service frameworks have made their leadership expectations explicit.
The Australian Public Service Leadership Capability Framework identifies five leadership capabilities: Shapes Strategic Thinking, Achieves Results, Cultivates Productive Working Relationships, Exemplifies Personal Drive and Integrity, and Communicates with Influence. Each is described at multiple levels from operational to executive, and the APS framework is notable for its strong integration between leadership expectation and organisational values.
The UK Civil Service Leadership Statement describes three qualities: Inspiring, Confident, and Empowering. It is deliberately brief, more of a behavioural aspiration than a technical framework, and it sits alongside the Civil Service Behaviours model which provides more granular competency detail.
The US Senior Executive Service uses a five-part Executive Core Qualifications system, covering Leading Change, Leading People, Results Driven, Business Acumen, and Building Coalitions. This framework is notable for its use in selection and assessment at the most senior levels of federal service.
What a Leadership Competency Model Is Not
A leadership competency model is not a personality profile. It describes what people do, not who they are. Organisations that conflate the two end up selecting for disposition rather than observable behaviour, which introduces bias and reduces predictive validity.
It is also not a competency framework for the whole organisation. A general competency framework covers all roles; a leadership model is scoped specifically to leadership behaviour, typically from a certain level upward.
And it is not a learning curriculum. Competencies describe expected performance; they do not prescribe how people develop. Using a competency model as a course catalogue is one of the more common ways organisations misapply it.
Common Failure Modes
Most failures in leadership competency model design come down to one of three problems.
The first is abstraction. Competencies defined at the level of "strategic thinking" or "inspires trust" are too vague to assess reliably. Two assessors reviewing the same leader will reach different conclusions because the competency does not specify what to look for.
The second is proliferation. Korn Ferry has 38 competencies for good reason; the research base behind them is substantial. But most organisations that develop their own frameworks without that foundation end up with a list that is either too long to use or too generic to mean anything.
The third is disconnection from context. Leadership competencies developed in a corporate head office may not reflect what effective leadership looks like in a manufacturing facility, a frontline service environment, or a public sector agency. Generic models borrowed wholesale from external sources without contextualisation consistently fail to land.
Trade-offs and When to Use Each Approach
Commercial frameworks like Korn Ferry and DDI are appropriate when the organisation needs a research-grounded, norm-referenced starting point, and has the resources to license and operationalise them properly. They are less appropriate when the organisation's context is highly specific and the framework needs to reflect that.
Internally developed models are appropriate when the organisation has the expertise to build them rigorously, and when the context is genuinely distinct enough that off-the-shelf frameworks would require substantial modification anyway. The risk is that internal development without sufficient data or expertise produces something that feels bespoke but performs worse than a commercial alternative.
Public sector frameworks are appropriate for their intended populations. Adapting them wholesale to commercial contexts often fails because the underlying assumptions about accountability, authority, and purpose do not transfer cleanly.
If you are thinking about the structural choices that underpin any framework, capability framework design principles apply here, including the need to be precise about what behaviours actually are before you attempt to describe them.
FAQ
What are the most commonly used leadership competency model examples?
The most widely used commercial frameworks are Korn Ferry Leadership Architect and DDI Success Profiles. Professional body models include SHRM's Behavioural Competency Framework and the CIPD Profession Map. Public sector organisations frequently reference the APS Leadership Capability Framework, UK Civil Service Behaviours, and the US Senior Executive Service Executive Core Qualifications.
How many competencies should a leadership model include?
Most practical leadership models include between 6 and 12 competencies for active use. Korn Ferry includes 38, but organisations typically select a subset. Beyond 12, models become difficult to communicate and use consistently.
What is the difference between Korn Ferry and DDI leadership models?
Korn Ferry Leadership Architect organises 38 competencies into four factors with detailed behavioural anchors for each. DDI's Success Profile framework distinguishes between threshold competencies (baseline requirements) and differentiating competencies (predictors of high performance). Both are research-grounded; they reflect different analytical priorities.
Can I use a public sector leadership framework in a commercial organisation?
You can, but adaptation is essential. Public sector frameworks embed assumptions about accountability structures, authority limits, and organisational purpose that often do not transfer directly to commercial environments. Lifting them wholesale typically produces a framework that does not resonate with leaders in a commercial context.
What is the threshold vs differentiating competency distinction in DDI?
A threshold competency is one that every leader needs to meet a minimum standard. It does not predict superior performance; it only prevents failure. A differentiating competency is one where higher levels of skill predict meaningfully better leadership outcomes. DDI's framework is built around this distinction, which forces organisations to be clear about what they are actually trying to predict.
How do I choose between a commercial and internally developed leadership model?
Use a commercial model when you need norm data, a research foundation, and a faster starting point. Build internally when your context is genuinely distinct, you have the capability to do it properly, and an off-the-shelf model would need substantial modification regardless.