Leadership Success Profile

Origin and explanation

Among the tools that support leadership in the public sector the Leadership Success Profile  (LSP) has a significant role in establishing what good leadership looks like for all public servants. The LSP framework has been designed to cover the broad range of leadership behaviours and capabilities expected of public sector leaders.

The latest version of the LSP, launched in July 2015, was developed through a series of focus groups involving a wide range of public sector leaders and leadership specialists.

The LSP framework comprises four core areas that capture the critical disciplines of leadership and management:

• strategic leadership
• system leadership
• talent management
• delivery management.

At the centre of this framework is a fifth core area that represents the leadership characteristics fundamental to being an effective leader in the public sector. An individual's leadership may look different based on their personality and external circumstances (for example, role, experiences, culture, gender, and age) but, every leader must recognise and develop the fundamental leadership attributes.

The design of the LSP represents a compass. At the head of the compass is the customer, everyday New Zealanders. The other points of the compass represent key aspects of the leader's world: strategy, delivery, and people.

Leadership Success Profile 360° (LSP360°)

Rating system and statement creation

The 5 core areas of the LSP (strategic leadership, system leadership, talent management, delivery management and leadership character) have been assigned 16 capability areas that describe the activities, behaviours and skills that public sector leaders should demonstrate.

Each of the core leadership and management areas (strategic leadership, system leadership, talent management, and delivery management) has three capability areas. The core area of leadership character has 4. 

The LSP360° assessment is based on the 16 capability areas and includes 41 statements where respondents, usually the participant's manager, direct reports, peers and other people the participant works closely with, are asked to rate the frequency that they see the leader exhibiting different behaviours. The participant also completes a self-assessment of the same statements.

Respondents' ratings of observed frequency for each statement are averaged to create an overall rating for each capability area. The averages for the capability areas make up the ratings for the 5 core areas.

The rating system is purposefully kept simple so that participants can review their LSP360° reports and quickly locate specific behaviours that they can review in light of their operating context and what they want to achieve.

The LSP360° assessment report provides high-level detail and makes it easy to see how a leader's skills align to the LSP. It also highlights where a particular respondent group sees a leader's behaviours differently from the leader's own point of view.

See some sample LDC LSP360° pages.

For more information

For more information about the LSP360° process, contact LDC on 04 473 2222 or email info@ldc.govt.nz