Competency Framework
Level 1
Provides clear direction, sets standards for tasks and behaviours, supervises others, understands their different values and motivators, and helps them to be effective.
Level 2
Effectively uses appropriate methods and management styles to motivate and empower team members and takes action to make an individual or team more effective.
Level 3
Effectively uses different leadership styles to generate engagement and empowerment and creates a psychologically safe culture across teams so they can be effective.
Motivating Others
- Builds and promotes team identity, spirit, values, morale, and pride; promotes the organisation's values and takes equal responsibility for others' successes and failures.
Creating Psychological Safety
- Creates a culture across the organisation e.g. in governance, where people can speak up, challenge, and admit mistakes without fear of negative consequences to self, status, or career.
Leadership Style
- Effectively balances EQ leadership styles - resonant (affiliative, coaching, democratic, visionary) with dissonant (pacesetting, commanding) to motivate groups.
- Uses the right decision-making methods and style to empower individual and collective performance.
Establishing Culture
- Influences a constructive, collaborative, and effective culture, congruent with the organisation's values.
Career Development
- Acts as a counsellor/mentor to help individuals and teams reach their career and performance potential.
Level 4
Creates and role models the right vision and culture to inspire others to succeed; drives people strategy, policy, and ethics for the overall organisation.
Level 1
Co-operates with others; is open minded, fair, and shows empathy, respect, and integrity.
Co-operating
- Is approachable, communicates appropriately with others, and seeks others’ ideas, opinions, and feelings in a sincere way, allowing them to express views and concerns.
- Does a fair share of the team’s work and co-operates willingly with others, offering support and help, and asking for help when appropriate.
Relationship Building
- Involves people appropriately, builds and maintains co-operative relationships with them, sharing ideas, and keeping them up to date with information that affects them.
Recognising Others
- Praises and thanks others for their success, contribution, and efforts.
Empathy and Respect
- Notices others and responds constructively to them; takes account of their opinions and how they feel.
- Looks for the positive motives for others' behaviour; demonstrates tolerance, trust, and fairness towards others.
- Treats others in a respectful way, considering the impact of own behaviour on others before acting; changes own views, ideas, and behaviour for the good of the group.
Diversity and Inclusion
- Works effectively with individuals with diverse backgrounds, skills, and expertise and demonstrates ability to adjust own approach to meet their needs.
Integrity and Ethical Behaviour
- Is open and honest, showing consistency between words and actions and delivering on promises to others.
- Accepts responsibility for own mistakes, and when others make mistakes focuses on resolving the problem, learning, and helping, rather than blaming.
- Maintains confidentiality when entrusted with the personal information of others.
- Handles the organisation’s and customer’s property with appropriate care; speaks appropriately about the organisation to others.
Level 2
Proactively encourages co-operation, strong relationships, common ground, and joint outcomes.
Co-operating
Relationship Building
Conflict Resolution
Organisation Knowledge
Empathy and Respect
Respectful Feedback
Diversity and Inclusion
Integrity and Ethical Behaviour
- Considers the impact on other areas when taking decisions or actions, accepts that others have different roles and contribute in different ways.
- Creates and highlights joint outcomes to maximise collaboration.
Relationship Building
- Proactively builds and maintains co-operative relationships with other teams and groups and contributes to a good network.
Conflict Resolution
- Supports colleagues after a setback, spots potential conflict and helps those involved highlight common ground as well as bringing disagreements into the open to resolve them.
Organisation Knowledge
- Builds knowledge of own organisation area and understands the role and responsibilities of related parts of the organisation to improve collaboration.
Empathy and Respect
- Recognises the importance of values in decision-making, motivation, and wellbeing; finds out and respects others’ values.
- Goes beyond a person's stated problems and draws out their deeper issues and needs; responds with empathy and compassion to personal, difficult, or embarrassing subjects.
Respectful Feedback
- Provides truthful and respectful feedback.
Diversity and Inclusion
- Demonstrates awareness of diversity, uses feedback and self-reflection to change any bias and encourages others to demonstrate respect and inclusive behaviour.
Integrity and Ethical Behaviour
- Constructively challenges unethical or disrespectful behaviours.
Level 3
Establishes mechanisms for collaboration, role modelling empathy, respect, and integrity, and resolves conflict within and between functions.
Co-operating
Organisation Knowledge
LP Competencies September 2024
Shares organisation knowledge and experience with useful contacts in other organisations.
Empathy and Respect
Diversity and Inclusion
Integrity and Ethical Behaviour
- Understands and shares the needs of different groups, creates collaborative goals between different parts of the organisation.
- Drives cross functional teamwork; agrees and aligns ways of working, processes, and governance requirements between areas of the organisation.
Conflict Resolution
- Resolves conflict by bringing teams together; identifies the causes of conflict (facts, methods, goals, values), and uses a range of techniques to resolve conflict and negative emotion.
Organisation Knowledge
- Promotes wider knowledge and understanding of the role and responsibilities of all parts of the organisation.
Empathy and Respect
- Promotes the importance of and role models empathy and respect, especially across different parts of the organisation.
Diversity and Inclusion
- Actively promotes an inclusive and equitable workplace where diversity is valued.
Integrity and Ethical Behaviour
- Encourages and recognises others who behave with honesty and integrity.
- Takes responsibility for the effect the organisation has on others and acts constructively within own area of influence.
- Acts as a role model for integrity, stands up against unethical behaviour and applies rules, standards, and policies in a consistent way.
- Creates methods of reviewing and governance that look for root causes and solutions rather than blame.
Level 4
Maintains commitment to values and standards of collaboration even in difficult situations; builds and manages positive and productive networks across the organisation and with partners and stakeholders.
Cooperating
- Promotes alignment of ways of working, processes, and governance requirements across the organisation.
Relationship Building
- Creates opportunities to work with partners, creating collaborative, win-win goals, encourages joint projects or sharing of resources when appropriate, and creates systems or processes for sharing information across the organisation.
- Builds a network of strong relationships with internal and external stakeholders across the organisation and with partners.
Conflict Resolution
- Resolves conflict within the organisation and with external stakeholders by emphasising common strategic goals and negotiating where differences occur.
Organisation Knowledge
- Brings in contacts from outside organisations who have experience and expertise to influence, solve problems, and strengthen collaboration.
External Stakeholders
- Anticipates and creates the opportunity to build alliances that increase the organisation’s credibility, targeting influential people in outside organisations and building relationships.
Recognising Others
- Acknowledges the successes of other functions, stakeholders, and partners, especially when achieved through collaborative efforts.
Diversity and Inclusion
- Strengthens commitment to practices founded on diversity, equity, and inclusivity, within the organisation and with external stakeholders.
Integrity and Ethical Behaviour
- Engages in difficult issues for the organisation to ensure the organisation remains socially responsible, challenges discrimination, prejudice, intolerance, and unfairness.
- Decisions and actions always meet the highest levels of ethical practice; follows correct procedures even when they have a negative personal impact.
- Determines and ensures compliance with the ethics of the organisation and sets the standards for ethical behaviour.
Level 1
Presents self positively and communicates assertively.
Making a Constructive Impact
Verbal and Written Communication
Listening and Building Rapport
Assertion
- Appears and sounds confident and polite, makes an immediate positive impression, and communicates effectively.
Verbal and Written Communication
- Speech is clear and well-paced, emphasised by gestures and tone, with suitable body language and eye contact.
- Writes clearly, concisely, and correctly, and in a style and structure relevant for the reader.
- Uses the right methods (email, meeting etc) when communicating.
Listening and Building Rapport
- Listens actively by letting people speak, understanding correctly and responding appropriately.
- Creates rapport by understanding the effect of own words and actions on others, noticing the responses of others and changing communication style and/or body language to match.
Assertion
- Expresses own needs, opinions, and feelings assertively and allows others to do the same.
Meetings and Presentations
- Uses communication skills to have a positive impact and be effective in meetings and presentations.
Level 2
Communicates confidently, respectfully, and constructively in different and difficult situations, including group interactions.
Listening and Building Rapport
- Creates rapport in a group by noticing responses and understanding and changing communication style and/or body language to match the other people.
Self-Awareness and Self-Control
- Is self-aware, authentic, and confident in most situations, gaining the attention of others and maintaining their interest even over long periods of time.
- Is discreet - knows when to speak and when not.
- Stays positive when others disagree or challenge, criticise or are in conflict; understands and controls own emotional reactions.
Assertion
- Constructively challenges or confronts others, expressing own needs confidently and assertively, even when they might be different to the needs of others or potentially unpopular.
- Recognises behaviour patterns and communication styles: assertive, non-assertive, aggressive, and avoiding; adapts own style to maintain an assertive interaction.
Influencing
- Considers how others might respond to situations and plans the approach to achieve the best outcome, using the appropriate content and level of detail.
- Prepares an assertive, clear, and well-reasoned case in support of proposals or ideas with a series of options and fallback positions that anticipate others’ response and objections.
Managing Interactions
- Ensures that rapport is established before trying to persuade.
- Starts an influencing situation by clarifying outcomes, values, and areas of agreement.
- Handles objections confidently and resolves them.
- Maintains progress by highlighting agreement and summarising at each stage.
Meetings and Presentations
- Uses communication skills to facilitate and/or chair meetings effectively to ensure that they make efficient use of time and are productive.
Level 3
Facilitates, plans, and adapts communication using different influencing styles to engage audience(s).
Verbal and Written Communication
Listening and Building Rapport
Influencing
Managing Interactions
- Writes and speaks with impact to change opinions.
Listening and Building Rapport
- Understands the deep drivers and motivators that influence how individuals communicate and responds appropriately to maintain rapport and understanding.
Influencing
- Recognises the need and who to influence; identifies the gap between own and others’ objectives, needs, values, and decision criteria.
- Uses different influencing styles appropriately; ‘logical thinker’, ‘friendly helper’, ‘firm driver’, and ‘enthusiast’.
Managing Interactions
- Assesses reactions and adapts approach dynamically within interactions, emphasises agreement and appeals to others’ needs, values, interests, and opinions to resolve differences.
- Actively controls the situation to reach a positive win-win outcome using different techniques to reach agreement and ‘close’.
Level 4
Creates, facilitates, and maintains a culture of effective communication; negotiates and influences within a complex and challenging environment.
Verbal and Written Communication
Influencing
Managing Interactions
- Uses communication skills effectively to communicate complex ideas to large audiences.
- Sets up communication processes that contribute to effective and productive working across multiple groups, anticipating important requests for complex information and providing it
Influencing
- Plans a strategic long-term influencing approach appropriate for the complexity of the audience and the message, involving many groups and methods, and structuring situations to lobby for and influence the outcome.
Managing Interactions
- Applies different influencing and negotiation techniques to achieve significant outcomes for the organisation.
- Lobbies key people, third parties, and experts to identify, mediate, and support the organisation’s case with other groups.
Level 1
Acts promptly to get things done and takes responsibility for solving problems.
Proactive and Positive Attitude
Accountability
Safety and Risk Awareness
Tenacity and Stress Tolerance
Problem Solving
- Is proactive; recognises and acts when something needs doing.
- Demonstrates energy, gets on with the job and focuses on what’s important.
- Able to work effectively without supervision.
Accountability
- Takes personal responsibility for tackling a situation, meeting commitments and promises, and closing off issues.
Quality
- Completes tasks to agreed standards and quality levels.
- Understands processes in place affecting quality and the need for compliance.
- Identifies and highlights incidents of poor quality.
Safety and Risk Awareness
- Is safety and risk-aware and ensures activities adhere to safety standards.
Tenacity and Stress Tolerance
- Shows determination and tenacity when facing problems; does not give up easily.
Problem Solving
- Analyses a problem, generates solutions, and makes considered decisions promptly and on time.
Level 2
Achieves stretching targets and delivers sound decisions, effectively balancing multiple criteria and stakeholder needs.
Positive Attitude
Accountability
Safety and Risk Awareness
Tenacity and Stress Tolerance
Encouraging Others to Deliver
Analysis
Decisiveness
Judgement
- Looks ahead for needs, opportunities, and problems, and takes appropriate action.
- Motivates own performance, responds to tough challenges as opportunities, and is prepared to take a personal risk e.g. to move out of ‘comfort zone’.
Accountability
- Takes on stretching responsibilities when appropriate and when agreed.
Quality
- Prioritises quality, encourages colleagues to deliver to quality standards, and participates with others to deliver quality improvements, problem containment, and preventative actions.
Safety and Risk Awareness
- Is risk-aware and ensures the team adheres to safety standards.
Tenacity and Stress Tolerance
- Maintains positive relationships even under stressful conditions.
- Shows determination and tenacity and remains calm, focused, and constructive when situations become stressful, or difficult.
Encouraging Others to Deliver
- Makes sure others deliver expected results and takes responsibility for supporting the implementation of others’ decisions.
- Communicates the importance of achieving results and creates a sense of urgency.
- Motivates individuals to be proactive even when meeting resistance.
Analysis
- Uses a systematic approach to gather and analyse relevant and accurate data across multiple criteria and stakeholders; looks for trends and correctly identifies links in information, even if ambiguous.
- Checks assumptions and looks for root causes of problems.
Decisiveness
- Makes timely decisions that are clearly communicated, and the reasons are explained.
- Makes decisions when faced with likely unpopularity, or possibility of failure.
Judgement
- Makes unbiased, objective, and balanced judgements, effectively weighing multiple criteria and pros and cons, including challenging upwards.
Level 3
Is tenacious and makes difficult decisions that have a constructive impact across functions in complex or stressful situations.
Accountability
Quality
Tenacity and Stress Tolerance
Encouraging Others to Deliver
Analysis
Judgement
- Commits resources or starts new initiatives to benefit the organisation.
Quality
- Understands quality trends, tools, and techniques and actively advocates for good quality behaviours in others.
Tenacity and Stress Tolerance
- Removes barriers to allow focus on organisation-critical activities.
- Visibly maintains a focus on the end goal during periods of uncertainty.
Encouraging Others to Deliver
- Motivates groups to be proactive even when meeting resistance.
- Encourages and rewards proactive behaviours in others.
Analysis
- Uses effective analytical techniques to analyse complex data.
Decisiveness
- Makes ‘tough’ or unpopular decisions and accepts accountability for them.
- Delivers decisions in the face of significant competing alternatives, undeterred by uncertainty or lack of information.
Judgement
- Remains objective through conflict, risk, complexity and ambiguity.
- Considers the likely impact of decisions across multiple functions when making balanced judgements.
Level 4
Drives the organisation forward, handles ambiguity and takes calculated risks to secure and deliver organisational success in the long-term.
Accountability
Quality
Encouraging Others to Deliver
Analysis
Decisiveness
Judgement
Strategy
- Commits resources or starts new initiatives to benefit the organisation, even when there is ambiguity, uncertainty, risk, known resistance, or the benefits are long-term.
Quality
- Brings cross functional groups together and facilitates work to improve quality.
- Looks pre-emptively and identifies potential future problems affecting quality; takes action before problems occur.
- Seeks best practice from global best-in-class organisations and adapts them for own organisation to improve quality.
Encouraging Others to Deliver
- Creates a culture of forward thinking and results focus so that actions are targeted to maximise the organisation’s objectives.
Analysis
- Handles ambiguity and clarifies complexity when considering a strategically important decision.
Decisiveness
- Remains decisive even when the decision has long-term consequences and significant risk.
Judgement
- Balances ambiguous and complex factors even in testing circumstances and considers strategic implications and long-term consequences.
- Shapes thinking on future policy affected by external factors and global events.
Strategy
- Influences the future, identifies trends, analyses SWOT, and develops strategy in line with market opportunity, to create or exploit commercial, competitive, or financial advantages.
- Develops and uses networks within the organisation and commercial environment to create or recommend new business ventures e.g. alliances, mergers, and acquisitions.
Level 1
Organises self, tasks, and projects well and responds positively to change.
Organising
- Systematically organises workspace and information, follows processes, responds promptly to instructions, emails, and calls, and is on time for appointments.
- Ensures that own efforts are directed by specific, measurable, and achievable goals.
Prioritising and Time Management
- Efficiently manages own time and keeps diary up to date; schedules and prioritises to ensure urgent and important tasks are completed within deadlines.
Planning and Reviewing
- Plans to ‘do things right first time’ considering level of detail, resources, logical steps, dependencies, and contingencies; talks through changes constructively.
- Monitors progress, maintains essential records, reviews forecasts, reports accurately, and takes corrective action to ensure priorities are met and are to standard.
Adding Value Through Continuous Improvement
- Is resourceful, reports on and/or stops ineffective methods.
Responding to Change
- Adapts, stays efficient and focused, and delivers when circumstances and priorities change; informs colleagues promptly if arrangements change.
- Proactively recognises the need for change, and co-operates with new methods, ways of working, techniques,
tools, or processes, even when not comfortable.
Level 2
Effectively plans and reviews projects involving other people; introduces and explains process and practice improvements and change to others and encourages acceptance.
Planning and Reviewing
Building Contingency
Adding Value Through Continuous Improvement
Helping Others Through Change
- Prepares and plans for situations that affect others, so that people and resources are organised efficiently.
- Monitors completion and quality of others’ work and takes corrective action to ensure priorities are met, using systems – software and paper-based - to manage resources and maximise efficiency.
- Identifies goals, tasks, and deadlines for others and communicates what decisions have been made and what resources are available.
- Coordinates and integrates the data from progress reviews, identifying best practice and taking corrective action.
Building Contingency
- Identifies interdependencies and builds these into the plan, minimises the effect of change on a project by building in and employing back-up plans.
Adding Value Through Continuous Improvement
- Proactively improves day-to-day working practices and creates an environment of continuous improvement within a team. Supports and constructively challenges to add value to other people’s ideas and proposals.
- Encourages others to make improvements in productivity and efficiency.
Helping Others Through Change
- Seeks to understand the impact of change on others, recognising that people are motivated differently.
- Explains change clearly and positively, selling the benefits, and staying calm and reassuring when others are
uncomfortable, getting practical support for them.
Level 3
Effectively plans and reviews significant projects and manages change initiatives.
Planning and Reviewing
Forecasting
Helping Others Through Change
Change Management
Leading Change
- Efficiently plans for and monitors complex activities, involving third parties and stakeholders, to ensure multiple resources are effectively used.
- Takes action to ensure immediate, medium, and long-term priorities and goals are balanced and achieved.
Forecasting
- Accurately forecasts performance to contribute to reviewing and decision-making.
Helping Others Through Change
- Plans the communication of change, considering different motivations and emotional reactions; helps to remove concerns by explaining what is different and what is staying the same.
Change Management
- Makes self accountable for the success of specific changes and continuous improvements and creates a sense of urgency to make them happen.
- Changes new goals into practical processes and plans change management activities considering both task and people factors.
Leading Change
- Leads by example in taking risks with new ideas, encouraging pilots and prototypes to ensure cross functional change is effective and introduced at the right pace.
- Makes sure new initiatives, strategies, processes, and practices are implemented successfully.
Level 4
Anticipates, leads, and exploits strategic organisation change.
Forecasting
- Accurately forecasts organisation-critical performance, appropriately judging the organisational context.
Strategic Planning
- Creates, adds value to, and manages the implementation of organisation plan(s) across departmental boundaries to maintain organisation performance and success.
- Considers the impact of current and future external trends and markets, reacts quickly, and contributes to strategic forecasting, scenario, and strategic planning.
Adding Value Through Continuous Improvement
- Uses expertise to look for, experiment with, and manage new ideas, methods, or processes to achieve organisation-level improvements.
- Uses extensive knowledge of overall organisation to improve effectiveness and productivity at an organisational level.
Leading Change
- Provides leadership to stimulate change, updates the organisation’s vision to reflect changes, inspires and involves others in making changes.
- Identifies new markets and customers for the organisation’s products and services and puts together a high-level change strategy for product(s) or service(s) to improve profitability.
Ownership of Change
- Anticipates the need for change through ‘what if’ scenarios and analysis of internal and external factors and advocates appropriate change.
Level 1
Gives high priority to customer needs and service levels and recognises costs of providing services and solutions.
Level 2
Adds value to customers and takes action to increase profitability and/or productivity whilst maintaining or improving customer service levels.
Level 3
Is an advocate within the organisation for customers, partners, and third parties; demonstrates commercial and marketplace awareness.
Level 4
Builds long-term, profitable partnerships with customers, sets commercial policy, and applies commercial/financial expertise to strategic plans.