Discover how to create and implement effective leadership behaviours frameworks that transform leadership development and drive measurable business outcomes.
Written by Laura Bouttell • Thu 20th November 2025
A leadership behaviours framework is a systematic model that defines, measures, and develops the specific observable actions and conduct patterns that drive leadership effectiveness within your organisation. Unlike abstract aspirations about "good leadership," these frameworks provide concrete, actionable descriptions of what effective leadership looks like in practice—creating shared language, clear expectations, and structured development pathways for leaders at all levels.
Consider the strategic challenge facing most organisations: whilst 70% of learning and development professionals consider mastering effective leadership behaviours critically important, only 58% of managers receive necessary training, and fewer than 20% of organisations claim their leadership programmes actually build good leaders. This execution gap between recognising leadership's importance and developing it systematically represents one of the costliest missed opportunities in business. Leadership behaviours frameworks bridge this gap by translating abstract leadership concepts into specific, observable actions that can be taught, practiced, assessed, and continuously improved.
A leadership behaviours framework is a holistic model that outlines the essential observable actions, conduct patterns, and behavioural indicators required for effective leadership within your organisation. It systematically defines what leaders at different levels should do—not merely what they should be—providing clarity about expectations whilst creating infrastructure for assessment, development, and accountability.
These frameworks typically consist of several interconnected components:
Leadership behaviours frameworks occupy a distinct space in the leadership development landscape. They differ from competency frameworks primarily in focus: competency frameworks encompass skills, knowledge, and attributes alongside behaviours, whilst behaviours frameworks specifically emphasise observable actions and conduct. In practice, many organisations use these terms interchangeably, and the distinction matters less than ensuring your framework addresses what leaders actually do.
Leadership frameworks differ from leadership styles or theories in their organisational specificity. Whilst transformational leadership or situational leadership represent broad theoretical approaches, a behaviours framework tailored to your organisation translates theoretical concepts into concrete expectations aligned with your culture, strategy, and values. The framework answers: "Given our business context, strategic priorities, and organisational culture, what specific leadership behaviours do we need from our leaders?"
Leadership behaviours frameworks address several critical organisational challenges that informal or implicit leadership expectations fail to resolve. Understanding these benefits clarifies why systematic frameworks warrant the investment required to develop and implement them effectively.
Without explicit frameworks, leadership expectations remain subjective, inconsistent, and often contradictory. Individual managers develop idiosyncratic views about what constitutes "good leadership," leading to confusion for developing leaders who receive conflicting guidance depending on whom they work with. Frameworks establish shared language and consistent standards, ensuring everyone understands what leadership excellence means within your organisation.
This clarity proves particularly valuable during performance assessments, succession planning, and development conversations. Rather than vague feedback that someone needs to "be more strategic" or "improve their leadership presence," frameworks enable specific discussions about observable behaviours: "In the last three strategic planning sessions, you focused primarily on tactical execution rather than identifying emerging market opportunities. Let's work on behaviours like scanning the competitive environment, questioning assumptions, and connecting trends to potential strategic implications."
Effective frameworks explicitly connect leadership behaviours to organisational strategy and values, ensuring that leadership development directly serves business objectives. If innovation represents a strategic priority, the framework emphasises behaviours like encouraging experimentation, responding constructively to intelligent failures, and challenging conventional thinking. If customer intimacy drives competitive advantage, the framework highlights behaviours around stakeholder understanding, relationship building, and customer advocacy.
This alignment ensures that investments in leadership development yield returns in strategic capabilities rather than merely developing generically "better leaders" who may excel at behaviours your organisation doesn't particularly value or need.
Frameworks transform leadership development from ad hoc reactions to systematic, scalable processes. They provide structure for identifying development needs through behavioural assessments, designing targeted interventions that address specific behavioural gaps, tracking progress through observable indicators, and measuring the impact of development investments on both leadership quality and business outcomes.
Research demonstrates that participants in well-designed leadership programmes improve performance by 20% and learning capacity by 25%. Frameworks amplify these benefits by ensuring programmes target behaviours your organisation actually needs and by creating common infrastructure for continuous improvement.
The ultimate rationale for leadership behaviours frameworks lies in their impact on organisational performance. When leaders consistently demonstrate effective behaviours—authenticity, accountability, active listening, strategic thinking, developing others—organisations experience measurable improvements in employee engagement, retention, productivity, innovation, and financial performance.
Employees who work with leaders demonstrating positive behaviours through improved collaboration are far more likely to remain with the company, reducing recruitment costs and employee churn. The improved working environment and increased engagement lead to more innovative approaches, helping businesses grow faster whilst building sustainable competitive advantages rooted in leadership capability rather than easily copied resources or processes.
Several established frameworks provide proven structures for organising and developing leadership behaviours. Understanding these models helps you either adopt one directly or draw insights when building your own organisation-specific framework.
This framework, inspired by the "Big Five" personality model in psychology, describes five fundamental categories of leader behaviour:
This framework's strength lies in its grounding in decades of psychological research about fundamental human behavioural dimensions. Organisations implementing this model benefit from extensive validation whilst gaining a relatively simple structure covering essential behavioural domains.
Developed through NHS Leadership Academy research for leaders working across complex systems, this framework identifies four overarching themes particularly relevant for executives operating in matrixed organisations or multi-stakeholder environments:
Each theme encompasses specific observable behaviours that leaders can develop deliberately. The framework includes a self-assessment tool requiring just 35 minutes to complete, supporting individuals to identify strengths, development areas, and personal readiness for system leadership.
This comprehensive framework identifies 49 components of leadership grouped into five dimensions, based on extensive research into the knowledge, skills, attitudes, behaviours, and values of successful leaders. Whilst its breadth exceeds what many organisations need for initial implementation, it demonstrates how granular behavioural frameworks can become when comprehensiveness is prioritised.
The framework's value lies in providing language for discussing leadership nuances that simpler models might miss, though organisations often find that focusing on a subset of the 49 components yields better results than attempting to develop all simultaneously.
This classic framework, emerging from behavioural leadership research, organises leadership actions into two fundamental dimensions:
| Dimension | Task-Oriented Behaviours | People-Oriented Behaviours |
|---|---|---|
| Focus | Goals, processes, outcomes | Relationships, development, well-being |
| Key Actions | Setting objectives, monitoring progress, ensuring accountability, problem-solving, resource allocation | Showing interest in team members, providing support, building psychological safety, coaching, recognising contributions |
| Development Impact | Drives execution and results | Builds engagement and capability |
| Contextual Fit | Crisis situations, turnarounds, operational roles, time-sensitive deliverables | Innovation environments, knowledge work, cultural transformation, long-term capability building |
Both types of behaviours prove essential for well-rounded leadership. The framework's practical value lies in helping leaders recognise which dimension they naturally favour and deliberately developing proficiency in the other. Many leadership failures stem from overemphasising one dimension whilst neglecting the other, rather than from lacking capability in either individually.
This well-researched framework emphasises four key behavioural clusters:
Research demonstrates that transformational leadership behaviours significantly impact organisational performance and financial results, making this framework particularly appealing for organisations prioritising innovation, change management, or cultural transformation.
Building an effective leadership behaviours framework requires systematic methodology that balances comprehensiveness with practical applicability. The following process has proven effective across diverse organisational contexts:
Begin by identifying your organisation's critical strategic objectives and core values. What capabilities distinguish market leaders in your industry? Which leadership behaviours would directly advance your competitive positioning? Where do current leadership gaps most constrain strategic execution?
This strategic grounding ensures your framework directly serves business objectives rather than developing leadership in abstract. A technology startup pursuing rapid growth requires different leadership behaviours than a mature financial services firm prioritising operational excellence and risk management.
Systematically research what effective leadership looks like within your specific context through multiple methods:
This research phase typically requires two to three months for thorough execution, though organisations sometimes abbreviate timelines when facing urgent leadership challenges.
Organise your findings into logical categories—typically five to eight broad dimensions—that comprehensively cover essential leadership domains. Within each dimension, define three to six specific behaviours using clear, observable, action-oriented language.
Example Structure:
Dimension: Developing Others
Note the concrete, observable nature of these descriptors. Anyone observing a leader could determine whether these behaviours are occurring, making assessment and feedback possible.
Describe how behaviours manifest differently across organisational levels. An emerging leader demonstrates "developing others" through peer mentoring and sharing expertise generously. A middle manager creates formal development plans, allocates time and budget for training, and advocates for high-potential team members. A senior executive establishes organisation-wide development systems, models continuous learning personally, and builds leadership bench strength as a strategic priority.
This differentiation prevents inappropriate expectations whilst clarifying developmental progression. It also enables the framework to serve leaders at all levels simultaneously rather than requiring separate frameworks for each tier.
For each behaviour, provide concrete examples and observable indicators that bring abstract descriptions to life. These indicators answer: "What would I see or hear if someone were demonstrating this behaviour effectively? What evidence would indicate they're not demonstrating it?"
Example Indicators for "Provides regular, specific feedback":
Positive indicators:
Concerning indicators:
Test your draft framework with a representative sample of leaders and stakeholders before full deployment. Do the behavioural descriptions resonate as relevant and actionable? Can leaders identify which behaviours represent strengths and which need development? Does the framework feel manageable or overwhelming?
Incorporate feedback, simplify language, add examples where clarity is lacking, and eliminate redundancies. This piloting phase prevents costly full-scale rollout of frameworks that prove too complex, too generic, or misaligned with organisational reality.
Develop practical tools that bring the framework to life:
Without supporting infrastructure, even well-designed frameworks often languish as documents that people reference during development conversations but don't actively use for ongoing improvement.
Creating an excellent framework means little if implementation fails to embed it into organisational systems and culture. Effective implementation follows a deliberate sequence that builds awareness, capability, and sustained adoption.
Introduce the framework organisation-wide, explaining its purpose, development process, and intended uses. Communication should address several key messages:
Use multiple channels—town halls, leadership team presentations, written communications, video messages from senior executives—recognising that people require repeated exposure through varied formats to truly absorb new concepts.
Train managers to use the framework through workshops that develop several capabilities:
This training requires experiential methods—practice conversations, case studies, behavioural observation exercises—rather than merely presenting information. Managers must develop practical skills, not just conceptual understanding.
Systematically integrate the framework into existing organisational processes:
Performance Management: Incorporate behavioural expectations into role descriptions, performance objectives, and review conversations. Rather than assessing "leadership" generically, evaluate specific behaviours defined in the framework.
360-Degree Feedback: Develop or revise multi-rater assessments to gather perspectives on framework behaviours from superiors, peers, and subordinates. These assessments provide invaluable data about behavioural strengths and development needs that self-perception alone cannot reveal.
Succession Planning: Use the framework to assess leadership readiness and identify high-potential individuals who demonstrate target behaviours consistently. Succession conversations become more objective when grounded in specific behavioural evidence rather than subjective impressions.
Recruitment and Selection: Incorporate framework behaviours into leadership role profiles and interview processes. Behavioural interviewing techniques that probe for past demonstrations of target behaviours help identify external candidates likely to succeed in your culture.
Learning and Development: Update leadership programmes to explicitly develop framework behaviours, with learning objectives, content, and practice opportunities directly tied to specific behavioural capabilities.
Continuously evaluate effectiveness and refine based on experience:
Frameworks should evolve as organisational strategy, culture, and context change. An annual review cycle ensures the framework remains relevant rather than becoming outdated infrastructure that people navigate around rather than through.
Several factors consistently distinguish successful implementations from those that fail to gain traction:
Senior Leadership Commitment: When executives visibly use framework language, reference it in decisions, and demonstrate behaviours personally, adoption accelerates dramatically. When senior leaders treat frameworks as "for other people," cynicism spreads quickly.
Manager Capability: Implementation success depends heavily on managers' skill at using frameworks for development conversations. Investing in high-quality manager training yields disproportionate returns.
Integration, Not Addition: Frameworks integrated into existing processes (performance reviews, development planning, succession discussions) achieve far greater adoption than those positioned as additional work separate from core activities.
Patience: Behavioural change occurs gradually. Expecting rapid transformation undermines implementation by creating unrealistic pressure. Most organisations require 18-24 months before frameworks become truly embedded in culture and routine practice.
Even well-designed frameworks encounter predictable implementation challenges. Anticipating these obstacles and preparing mitigation strategies significantly increases adoption success.
Many organisations create frameworks so comprehensive that they overwhelm rather than guide. Attempting to address every conceivable leadership dimension produces unwieldy documents that people struggle to remember or apply practically.
Mitigation: Prioritise essential behaviours over exhaustive comprehensiveness. Seven to ten key behaviours, well-integrated and consistently reinforced, drive more improvement than thirty behaviours that people cannot recall or operationalise. You can always expand the framework later once initial behaviours are embedded.
Frameworks developed through purely top-down processes or adopted uncritically from external sources often feel disconnected from organisational reality. Leaders perceive them as HR initiatives rather than practical tools for actual leadership challenges.
Mitigation: Ground frameworks in research about what actually drives effectiveness in your specific context. Include practicing leaders meaningfully in development processes. Test frameworks through pilots that reveal misalignments before full deployment.
Implementation frequently underestimates the skill required for managers to use frameworks effectively. Without strong capability to assess behaviours, provide specific feedback, and coach development, frameworks remain abstract concepts rather than practical development infrastructure.
Mitigation: Invest heavily in manager training, providing ongoing support rather than one-time workshops. Create resources—conversation guides, example feedback statements, coaching question banks—that scaffold manager capability during early adoption.
When promotion decisions, compensation, and public recognition continue prioritising technical expertise or business results whilst ignoring behaviours, people quickly learn that frameworks don't really matter despite official messaging. Behavioural expectations without consequences for violation or rewards for excellence become empty rhetoric.
Mitigation: Ensure leadership assessment and reward decisions explicitly incorporate behavioural criteria. Make visible examples of leaders who advance because of behavioural excellence and those who face consequences for behavioural shortcomings despite strong technical or business contributions.
Organisations introducing frameworks amidst numerous other change initiatives often encounter exhausted stakeholders who view "one more thing" with scepticism. Even valuable frameworks struggle to gain attention in crowded initiative portfolios.
Mitigation: Clarify how the framework supports rather than competes with other priorities. If possible, sequence rollout during relatively stable periods rather than peak change intensity. Connect frameworks explicitly to other initiatives—showing how behavioural development enables success with strategic transformation, for example.
Effective frameworks are living documents that evolve as organisations, markets, and leadership understanding progress. Several factors trigger framework evolution:
Significant changes in organisational strategy often necessitate revised leadership behaviours. A company pivoting from product focus to platform business model requires different leadership approaches—more collaborative, more systems-oriented, more comfortable with ambiguity. Frameworks should explicitly shift to emphasise behaviours supporting new strategic directions.
Deliberate cultural change frequently requires behavioural evolution. If your organisation is moving from hierarchical command-and-control culture toward empowerment and agility, leadership behaviours must shift accordingly—less directing, more coaching; less decision-hoarding, more delegation; less information control, more transparency.
As understanding of leadership effectiveness evolves through research and practice, frameworks should incorporate new insights. Recent emphasis on psychological safety, inclusive leadership, and adaptive capacity might warrant framework additions that weren't recognised as critical when earlier versions were developed.
Experience implementing frameworks reveals which elements work well and which need revision. Perhaps certain behavioural descriptions prove too vague for practical assessment. Maybe some dimensions overlap confusingly whilst important areas receive inadequate attention. Annual reviews incorporating this implementation learning strengthen frameworks iteratively.
Major disruptions—technological transformation, regulatory change, market upheaval, global crises—can rapidly render established leadership approaches inadequate. The shift to distributed work during global pandemic required rapid evolution in leadership behaviours around virtual communication, asynchronous collaboration, and maintaining connection without physical presence. Frameworks unable to evolve quickly become obstacles rather than enablers.
Experience implementing frameworks across diverse organisations reveals several practices that consistently enhance effectiveness:
Vague descriptions like "demonstrates strategic thinking" or "shows leadership presence" prove impossible to assess reliably or develop systematically. Effective frameworks use precise, observable language: "Identifies emerging market trends before they become obvious to competitors" or "Maintains composure and clear thinking when facing unexpected setbacks, focusing team attention on constructive responses rather than blame."
Generic frameworks adopted without customisation rarely resonate deeply. Whilst external frameworks provide valuable starting points, adapting them to reflect your organisation's unique culture, values, and strategic context significantly increases perceived relevance and adoption.
Frameworks need sufficient breadth to address essential leadership domains whilst remaining simple enough for busy leaders to remember and apply. Seven to ten key behaviours organised into three to five dimensions typically provides optimal balance, though context varies by organisational complexity.
Identifying behavioural gaps means little without practical guidance for improvement. Effective frameworks link each behaviour to specific development actions: recommended training, relevant reading, practice exercises, coaching strategies. This connection between assessment and development transforms frameworks from merely evaluative tools into practical development infrastructure.
Leaders engage frameworks through various pathways—some through formal training, others through performance reviews, still others through self-directed development. Providing multiple entry points and resources in varied formats (workshop materials, self-assessment tools, coaching guides, online modules, quick reference cards) accommodates diverse preferences and organisational processes.
Senior executives must demonstrate framework behaviours consistently and visibly, using framework language naturally in communications and decisions. When leaders reference specific behaviours in recognising colleagues, explaining decisions, or articulating development priorities, they signal that frameworks truly matter rather than merely representing HR compliance.
A leadership behaviours framework is a systematic model that defines the specific observable actions and conduct patterns required for effective leadership within your organisation. It provides concrete behavioural descriptors organised into logical categories, differentiated across organisational levels, and supported by assessment tools and development resources. Unlike generic leadership theories, effective frameworks are customised to your organisation's strategic priorities, culture, and values, translating abstract leadership concepts into specific, actionable expectations that can be taught, practiced, assessed, and continuously improved.
Behaviours frameworks specifically emphasise observable actions and conduct, whilst competency frameworks encompass broader elements including skills, knowledge, attributes, and behaviours. In practice, many organisations use these terms interchangeably, and the distinction matters less than ensuring your framework addresses what leaders actually do. The critical question isn't which label you use but whether your framework provides clear, observable, actionable guidance about leadership expectations that can be systematically assessed and developed.
Creating an effective framework typically requires two to three months for research, design, and piloting, though organisations facing urgent leadership challenges sometimes compress timelines. Implementation represents a longer journey, with most organisations requiring 12 to 18 months before frameworks become truly embedded in culture and routine practice, and 24 to 36 months before observing full impact on leadership capability and business outcomes. This timeline assumes systematic integration with organisational systems, comprehensive manager training, and sustained senior leadership commitment rather than treating frameworks as one-time initiatives.
Effective frameworks share several characteristics: they define behaviours using observable, specific language rather than vague generalisations; they align explicitly with organisational strategy, culture, and values; they differentiate behavioural expectations across organisational levels; they connect to practical development resources and tools; they integrate systematically with performance management, succession planning, and leadership development processes; and they evolve based on implementation learning and changing strategic context. Perhaps most critically, effective frameworks are actually used—referenced in development conversations, evident in assessment processes, and modelled visibly by senior leaders.
This decision depends on several factors. Adopting established frameworks (like transformational leadership or System Leadership Behaviours Framework) provides research validation, proven tools, and faster deployment, making this approach attractive when timelines are compressed or internal development capability is limited. Building custom frameworks enables perfect alignment with your organisation's unique culture, strategy, and language, typically yielding stronger ownership and relevance. Many organisations pursue a hybrid approach: starting with established frameworks, then adapting them deliberately to reflect organisational specifics. Whichever path you choose, ensure meaningful input from practicing leaders who will use the framework daily.
Framework impact manifests through multiple indicators at different timescales. Early indicators (3-6 months) include framework awareness, manager capability to conduct behavioural development conversations, and utilisation rates in performance reviews or development planning. Medium-term indicators (6-18 months) encompass improvements in 360-degree feedback scores on specific behaviours, increased bench strength in succession planning, and enhanced leadership programme effectiveness as measured by participant skill development. Longer-term indicators (18-36 months) include employee engagement improvements in teams led by leaders demonstrating target behaviours, retention rates particularly among high performers, promotion success rates, and ultimately business performance metrics like productivity, innovation, and financial results in units with strong leadership behavioural alignment.
Most organisations benefit from annual reviews that consider minor refinements whilst undertaking more substantial revisions every three to five years or when major strategic shifts occur. Annual reviews should assess whether behaviours remain relevant to current strategy, whether language requires clarification based on implementation experience, and whether new research or practices warrant incorporation. More fundamental revisions become necessary when organisations undergo significant strategic transformation, major cultural change, substantial leadership turnover, or external disruption that renders established leadership approaches inadequate. The goal is maintaining relevance whilst avoiding change fatigue that undermines adoption.
Leadership behaviours frameworks represent strategic infrastructure that transforms abstract leadership aspirations into concrete, observable actions systematically developed throughout organisations. Whilst creating effective frameworks requires thoughtful methodology and implementation demands sustained commitment, the returns—clearer expectations, more effective development, stronger leadership capability, and ultimately improved business performance—justify the investment. The most successful organisations don't view frameworks as static documents but as living systems that evolve alongside strategic priorities, continually connecting leadership development to business value whilst building sustainable competitive advantage rooted in superior leadership capability at all levels.