Develop Your Leaders Using Our Top Research-Based Models

Leadership Models Made Simple

For more than 50 years, we’ve worked closely with leaders, conducting research and studying what makes them effective. We’ve also examined how people learn, grow, and change during their careers as a result of leadership development programs and evaluated our own programs and their impact.

Our dedication to expanding human potential in an ever-changing world has allowed us to continually evolve our understanding of effective leadership — producing new concepts, innovations, and leadership models over the years.

This paper can help you understand, apply, and reference our leadership models in your work. Whether you’re involved in designing leadership training curricula, nurturing employee engagement, or simply enriching your understanding of the field, you’ll find information about our pioneering and time-tested models.

What Is a Leadership Model?

A leadership model offers a simple, concrete way to teach leadership topics. Models (sometimes called “frameworks”) are conceptual structures that offer informed views on topics, issues, or processes. Researchers and practitioners often present models in graphic form, as visual representations provide an engaging and effective way to organize and communicate large amounts of information.

As our understanding of leadership evolves, these models continue to play a crucial role in advancing both the theory and practice of leadership development, helping leaders navigate increasingly complex organizational environments.

4 Types of Leadership Models

In this paper, you’ll be introduced to 23 of our most frequently referenced leadership models that can help you understand leadership spread effective leadership practices across your organization. They are organized in 4 high-level types:

1. Process models that help leaders understand the processes that build effective leadership.
2. Topical models that deepen understanding of how people work together within organizations.
3. An organizational framework that provides a structure for understanding and developing leader competencies.
4. An impact assessment that organizations can use to measure and enhance the impact of leadership development initiatives.

Our Most Common Leadership Models

The 23 leadership models included are:

1. 3 Types of Organizational Leadership Cultures: Labels organizational cultures as dependent, independent, and interdependent.
2. 3X3X3 Model: Outlines the key elements for effective learning transfer across 3 dimensions.
3. 4 Core Behaviors for Better Conversations Every Day: Shows the core skills that can build trust, fuel collaboration, and drive better business outcomes.
4. 70-20-10 Development Framework: Identifies 3 key types of blended learning developmental activities: challenging assignments, developmental relationships, and coursework and training.
5. Advanced Strategic Leadership: Illustrates the components of strategy formulation and execution.
6. Assessment – Challenge – Support (ACS)™: Displays 3 critical elements driving leadership development both in and out of the classroom.
7. Anatomy of a Learning Experience: Illustrates the complex journey of leadership development.
8. Beyond Bias™: Demonstrates how bias manifests as stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination.
9. Boundary Spanning Leadership: Provides 3 interrelated strategies to help leaders welcome, accept, and coordinate people of diverse perspectives.
10. Change Leadership / Change Management: Synthesizes research with clients, our Strategic Leadership model, our Direction – Alignment – Commitment (DAC)™ framework, our Leadership Culture Model, and John Kotter’s Change Management model.
11. Comprehensive Resilience Framework: Outlines the 4 interconnected aspects of resilience and 8 evidence-based practices.
12. Competencies of Leadership: Shows the Fundamental 4 competencies that consistently emerged as necessary for leaders across various career stages, organizational levels, and sectors.
13. Direction – Alignment – Commitment (DAC)™: Promotes a relational view of leadership, moving beyond command-and-control to mutual influence.
14. Digital Leadership Capability: Displays 9 people-related leadership capabilities, organized into 3 cycles of digital transformation.
15. Feedback That Works (SBI): Illustrates our seminal approach to giving feedback that we’ve been practicing and teaching for decades.
16. Fundamental 4 Components of Learning Agility: Shows the 4 behaviors we believe to occur sequentially in the learning process.
17. iAIM2 Communicate: Displays a 5-step process that transforms how leaders frame their messages and connect with their audiences.
18. Influence: Highlights 6 components regarding a leader’s ability to influence.
19. Leadership Development Impact (LDI) Framework: Showcases an approach to show the multi-layered impact of leadership development initiatives.
20. Model of Leader Competencies: Provides 20 critical competencies of leader effectiveness.
21. REAL™: Outlines our approach to equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI).
22. Team Effectiveness Framework: Displays the critical areas in which teams must channel their collective effort and energy.
23. The Delegation Cycle: Shows what leaders can do to improve their delegation practices and team empowerment.

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