Leadership

Showing pride and integrity in your work, and inspiring others toward a shared goal — with or without formal management authority.

What this behaviour means

Leadership doesn't require line-management responsibility. It's about taking ownership, setting a standard others followed, or influencing a group toward a better outcome. Candidates without direct reports often skip this behaviour by mistake — informal leadership (leading a project, setting a standard peers adopted, stepping up in a gap) counts.

What assessors are looking for

• Evidence of influence or standard-setting, even without formal authority
• That you took ownership of an outcome rather than waiting to be told
• How you supported or motivated others, specifically
• Integrity under pressure — being honest about a problem rather than hiding it

Common mistakes

• Assuming this behaviour only applies to people managers and skipping it or forcing a weak example
• Describing formal authority ("I'm the team lead so I told them what to do") instead of the influence or standard-setting itself
• No mention of how anyone else was actually affected by your leadership

How to structure your STAR example

Situation

Set out the context that needed leadership — a gap, a problem nobody had picked up, a team that needed direction.

Task

Be honest about your actual authority level; strong non-manager examples explicitly note you didn't have formal authority and led anyway.

Action

Describe specifically how you influenced or supported others — what you said, modelled, or organised.

Result

State what changed for the team or the outcome, and where possible, evidence that others adopted what you set in motion.