Using the Leadership Framework and supporting resources

A PDR can be described as a high level one-to-one a discussion that focusses on the past and future year, rather than the past and future month or few weeks. See the PDR pages on POD’s website for further information.  You will be reviewing objectives and setting new ones, it’s also the perfect opportunity to reflect and think more broadly, to reflect on progress, and consider together what further development is appropriate and how it will take place, as well as focusing on the core competencies we should be demonstrating. 
When preparing for the PDR, reviewers and reviewees can reflect on the framework elements and identify some strengths and areas for development against these.  
Reviewers can note down some specific feedback examples to share using the Example, Effect, Change or Continue (EEC) model, ready to talk through with the reviewee.  Use the leadership framework within the PDR development planning section to explore and record thinking about leadership behaviours and competencies.  NB: Some people will need encouragement to recognise leadership in what they do; others may overlook opportunities for growth and improvement. 
Use a personal learning development plan make sure that aspirations turn into firm plans. Plan together how you will use the exercises in the framework resources, what support is available and how you will check in and follow up.

You can also use the Leadership Framework and resources with the whole team or several team members.  For more ideas on team development, take a look at our website here: https://pod.admin.ox.ac.uk/people-development-planning. 

Remember that although it is likely to be more immediately relevant to those who manage others, or who lead projects or initiatives, anyone can display leadership behaviours. Someone who comes up with a good idea for how you could improve a process is seeking to do things better.  Someone who spots an opportunity, or a risk, brings it to the team’s attention is thinking ahead and taking an open and long-term view of possibilities. Team members who encourage and value feedback and contributions from their colleagues are showing their capabilities in working with others. 

Please see below for some suggestions for using the framework in team development:

A. Invite the team to look at the elements in advance of a team meeting and consider how relevant do they think it is to them? Could they see ways in which it could be used? Which areas seem like team strengths or areas for development?  You can use a RAG (Red, Amber, Green) rating to determine a picture of team strengths and priority development areas.  Discuss the implications together, and invite the team to identify next steps together.  Be clear on how you plan to follow these up.

B. At the end of a team meeting or during an away day, or when reviewing a project together, invite team members to consider if as a team you demonstrated any of the elements in the framework, what was demonstrated and what the learnings are.  Agree next steps together and how you plan to follow these up.  Encourage team members to use the relevant resources to further their own development.

C. In Getting Things Done and Working with Others, many of the learning activities are intended to be easily adaptable to a team environment.  For example, Getting things Done, Element  2: ‘Achieves agreed objectives, using resources and deploying staff flexibly’ (Exercise A), you can explore attitudes to planning together and how well the team collectively plans work , or in Element  3: ‘Influences stakeholders to achieve desired change’, you can use Exercise B to build your collective understanding of team stakeholders, or use the communications channels analysis exercise in Exercise A, Working with Others, Element  3: ‘Facilitates open and transparent communication to strengthen internal and external communications’. 

Using your analysis, or drawing on the team’s analysis of strengths and areas for development, select an appropriate exercise to use with the team.  Share the activity and invite team members to discuss their thinking in pairs and then bring ideas to the whole team.  Be clear who is recording learning and how it will be shared, used and followed up.

When recruiting to jobs that involve managing people, it can be hard to create selection criteria that are specific enough to be really useful in the recruitment process. Asking prospective applicants whether they have experience in managing others is so vague, and so open to interpretation, that it is unlikely to be helpful. You may miss out on good candidates because they don’t know exactly what you are looking for, so can’t tailor their applications effectively. 

The framework gives you the opportunity, as a recruiter, to think in detail about the things you want a new people manager to be able to do. It is designed to give concrete terms for the capabilities required for effectively leading and managing others and in many cases you will be able to use their wording as criteria with little or no change.

Here are three examples of how you might work through the process, with help from the framework:

Alternatively, you could include the leadership framework in the application pack.  You could also highlight some key elements.  Ask candidates to refer to the framework in their application statement, or ask candidates to share an example where they have demonstrated one of the elements in their application.

New members of staff need to understand what is expected of them in their role, otherwise problems may arise with successful completion of the probationary period.  For those starting new manager roles, you can use the Leadership Framework to set out the expectations for leadership and management behaviours.  You can signpost them to the framework and you can ask them to use the diagnostic or ask them to look at element exercises related to specific management behaviours which you feel are a priority for the role, or which their application process indicated could be a personal development area.  
Include reference to the framework in the induction plan and probation documentation.
When you review the probationary period, invite the new manager to share any learning, development or future goals in relation to the elements in the framework.
For further information on induction and probation, please see HR pages and the Manager Toolkit guide.