Make Developing Self and Others visible through specific AO-level actions
Developing Self and Others is about improving your own capability and helping useful knowledge spread through the team. This guide translates the official AA/AO points into practical evidence and shows how to build a complete statement without inflating the level of responsibility.
Developing Self and Others is about improving your own capability and helping useful knowledge spread through the team. For an AO role, this usually means identifying a genuine gap, making time to learn, acting on feedback and sharing what you have learned in a practical way.
At AO level, the behaviour is often demonstrated through practical situations such as learning a system, improving written work, responding to quality feedback, helping a new colleague or creating a short guide after gaining confidence. A strong answer shows a complete learning cycle from identified need to applied improvement and team benefit.
What are the criteria at AO level?
The official AA and AO behaviour guide lists 4 points for Developing Self and Others. Quote them exactly in your planning notes and make each point visible through evidence.
1
“identify gaps in your skills and knowledge and make plans of how to develop these”
2
“take time to achieve development objectives”
3
“listen to and act on feedback from colleagues to find areas you can develop”
4
“share knowledge and skills learnt with colleagues to contribute to the learning and development of the whole team”
What each criterion means in practice
1
Identify a skill or knowledge gap
Use feedback, an error, a new task or self-review to name something specific you need to improve.
2
Make a development plan
Choose realistic learning activity, timescales and a way to test whether you have improved.
3
Act on feedback
Listen without becoming defensive, ask for clarification and change your practice.
4
Share learning
Pass on a useful technique, guide or demonstration so colleagues benefit, while checking that the information is accurate.
How to structure your statement
Use Situation, Task, Action and Result as a private writing structure. Do not add the labels to the final application unless the vacancy specifically asks for them. Keep the opening short and reserve most of the word count for your personal actions.
A practical 250-word balance
Part
Suggested space
What to include for Developing Self and Others
Situation
25 to 40 words
The setting, people involved and the issue that made the behaviour relevant.
Task
25 to 35 words
Your own responsibility and the outcome you needed to achieve.
Action
130 to 160 words
The criterion-linked steps, decisions, checks, communication and reasons for your approach.
Result
30 to 45 words
The practical outcome and any useful improvement that followed.
Weak evidence
I attended training and then helped my colleagues improve.
Stronger evidence
I used quality feedback to define a specific gap, planned practice and review points, changed my method after a second review and shared an approved prompt with colleagues.
Subscribers can unlock the full AO Developing Self and Others scoring method below, followed by three complete example statements close to 250 words, detailed explanations of why each example works and a final checklist for adapting your own evidence.
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