Leadership behaviour: the Success Profiles framework
Leadership in Success Profiles means showing enthusiasm and direction, supporting others, and helping your team achieve its goals. You do not need to be a manager: every grade from AA to SCS has its own level of this behaviour, described in the framework's level descriptors.
What the Leadership behaviour actually means
The Success Profiles framework describes Leadership as being visible, setting direction, and supporting and enabling others to deliver. It covers enthusiasm, fairness, inclusion and building confidence, not just holding a management job.
In practice, that means three things run through every level. You set a direction people can follow. You support the people around you, especially when things are hard. You help the whole team reach its goal, not just your own corner of it.
From the official guidance
GOV.UK publishes the Success Profiles guidance, including the behaviour definitions and level descriptors, at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/success-profiles. Always read the job advert alongside it, because departments choose which behaviours and levels apply to each role.
The framework is deliberately broad because leadership looks different at different grades. A retail assistant organising colleagues through a busy launch and a director resetting a whole department can both show it, each at their own level.
How the level descriptors work
The framework does not use one definition for everyone. It sets out level descriptors, one per grade or grade group, describing what Leadership looks like at AA and AO, EO, HEO, SEO, Grade 7, Grade 6 and the Senior Civil Service.
Each level builds on the one below. Junior levels focus on your immediate team: enthusiasm, fairness and supporting colleagues. Middle levels add leading teams through day-to-day pressure and improving how they work. Senior levels are about setting vision, leading other leaders, and inspiring confidence across whole organisations.
For example, at AO a strong statement might describe reorganising a shift so nobody was overloaded. At Grade 7, the same behaviour would look like leading four teams through a six-month restructure without losing people or delivery.
Assessors score your statement against the level descriptor for the advertised grade, not against some abstract ideal of a leader. This is good news: you are only ever compared with what is reasonable at that grade.
How levels map to grades
The table below summarises the shape of Leadership at each level. It is a plain-English summary, not a quotation, so read the full descriptors on GOV.UK before you apply.
| Grade | What Leadership looks like |
|---|---|
| AA and AO | Enthusiasm and direction in your immediate work; supporting colleagues; treating people fairly. |
| EO | Organising small pieces of team work; keeping a group focused on shared goals; setting a positive example. |
| HEO | Leading a small team or project day to day; supporting wellbeing and development; giving honest feedback. |
| SEO | Visible leadership of a whole team; improving how the team works; building an inclusive culture. |
| Grade 7 | Leading across teams through change; translating strategy into direction; developing other leaders. |
| Grade 6 | Setting vision for a broad area; leading senior leaders; shaping culture across boundaries. |
| SCS | System-wide direction; building leadership capability for the future; inspiring trust at the highest levels. |
Notice the pattern: scope grows, and the balance shifts from doing to enabling. By the senior grades, the behaviour is mostly about the leaders and culture you build, not the tasks you personally finish.
Why this matters for your application
Two practical consequences follow. First, pick examples that match the level. Managing a big project will not rescue an AO statement if you never show personal enthusiasm and support; a one-day story will underclaim a Grade 7 application.
Second, read the level descriptor before you write. Our guide to Leadership at each grade walks through every level in detail, and our guide to finding Leadership examples helps you match your own history to it.
Tip
Copy the level descriptor's own language into your preparation notes, not your statement. If the descriptor says supports others, your statement should show the moment you supported someone, with names, actions and a result.
Frequently asked questions
No. The framework assesses Leadership at every grade including AA and AO, where it means enthusiasm, direction and supporting colleagues in your immediate work. Many strong junior examples come from people with no line-management responsibility at all, such as buddying a new starter or organising volunteers.
GOV.UK publishes them within the Success Profiles guidance at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/success-profiles. The job advert will tell you which level applies to the role you want. Read the descriptor for that grade carefully before drafting, because assessors score your statement directly against it, line by line.
The behaviour definition and level descriptors are shared across departments, but departments choose which behaviours they assess and at what level for each role. Word limits and scoring practice also vary, so as of July 2026 the safest approach is always to check the specific job advert carefully.
Next step
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