Leadership Competencies

Nothing Matters Except What You Do on the Job

Being a successful leader is about more than how smart you are or what skills you have. It’s about what you do on the job and how you treat people. And that’s what leadership competencies are for.  

At DDI, we help you hire, promote, and develop leaders based on the competencies that will make them successful in their specific roles. 

Built around clear, observable behaviors, our leadership competencies are unmatched in the market. Our well-defined competencies help you know the difference between leaders who talk about success and those who actually do it.

You don’t need to define your competencies from scratch. Start with ours.

Are your leaders ready to carry out your business strategy? Our competency library will enable you to connect what drives your business to the specific behaviors your leaders need to show.

Our library of 114 competencies across 10 job families comes with a development guide for each competency to help leaders understand what they need to do to excel and grow. You can choose to license our library or have our consultants build your competency frameworks.

Explore a Competency Library License

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Focus Development on Competencies

Your leaders are busy so they need to know exactly where to focus their development efforts. That’s where action-driven competencies come in. 

DDI leadership development programs are built on competencies. That way, your leaders can make sure every development activity is focused on building key competencies. It’s time well spent. And then they also know exactly how development translates to their day-to-day work. 

Explore leadership development subscriptions

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Get Data on Leadership Competencies

How do you really know if leaders show competencies on the job? With DDI leadership assessments, it’s easy to find out. Our assessments are built around leadership competencies.  

Whether you’re looking for 360-degree feedback or a full role immersion, we help you find key behaviors. The result? You’ll have all the data you need to make the best decisions about leadership development and promotion.  

Learn about assessments

Conduct Better Interviews

You know it’s easy for interviews to go off the rails. Likewise, you’ve probably dealt with the consequences of hiring the wrong fit.  

DDI’s behavioral interviewing system helps you focus on what matters: competencies for the job. You’ll get real data about how a person will act in the role before you extend an offer. 

Explore behavioral interviewing

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Set the Foundation for Success

Every job should have a Success ProfileSM that gives a holistic picture of what success looks like. Because it’s about more than what you know or what skills you have. Above all, success in any job is based on how people behave every day. 

We work with you to turn robust leadership competencies into complete Success Profiles. So you’ll know what success looks like in every job.

Start building Success ProfilesSM

Get our competency library as part of a leadership development subscription

Have a Question?

Frequently Asked Questions About Leadership Competencies

  • What are leadership competencies?

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    Leadership competencies are specific, measurable behaviors and abilities that define what great leadership looks like in action. They include interpersonal skills, leadership capabilities, business management skills, and personal attributes that can be observed and developed.

  • How can my organization use leadership competencies?

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    A leadership competency framework creates a common language that defines what great leadership looks like across your organization. By connecting business goals to specific leadership behaviors, competencies help leaders know exactly where to focus their development and how success will be measured. This framework guides everything from daily leadership actions to development programs, helping shape your culture while making it clear how leaders at every level can drive business success.

  • How can I get started using leadership competencies in my organization?

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    You don't need to build your leadership competencies from scratch—DDI's comprehensive library of 114 competencies across 10 job families gives you a strong foundation to start with. You can use this library for everything from hiring to development.

  • What is a Success Profile℠, and how does it relate to leadership competencies?

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    A Success Profile gives you a complete picture of what makes someone successful in a role. It combines four key elements—knowledge, experience, competencies, and personal attributes—to help you make better decisions about selection and development. By using Success Profiles, you can avoid the common mistake of focusing only on résumé qualifications and instead consider all the factors that truly drive leadership success.