The Three Fundamentals of Leadership

Within each of the three Leadership Fundamentals in the Hallmarks of Excellence® in Educational Leadership model, three leadership competencies have been identified that precisely describe the characteristics of highly effective leaders in education. These nine competencies are required knowledge and essential behaviors that are present in extraordinary leaders.

Mastering Your Core

  • Value-Driven: Builds trust and speaks and lives truth with honesty, courage and finesse.
  • Professional Acumen: Understands and manages personal emotions and respects the feelings and attitudes of others.
  • Continuous Learning: Assumes responsibility for identifying areas for personal growth, able to discern best practices, and readily shares knowledge and skills with others.

Forging The Path

  • Personal Discipline/Diligence: Sizes up situations quickly, acts decisively, and anticipates change to initiate solutions.
  • Strategic Vision: Well-developed global life view, understands the times and issues, and equipped to develop and deploy strategic action.
  • Effective Communication: Articulates ideas and influences people through clear, coherent written and oral communications.

Ensuring Execution

  • Long-Term Results: Able to align and mobilize the company’s processes, resources and people to achieve measurable, bottom-line results.
  • Shared Management: Selects talented people, creates and models an empowering environment, and promotes diversity (culture, race and gender) to realize business success.
  • Servant Leadership: Listens to customers and dedicated to achieving quality service and personal excellence.