Grade 6 Seeing the Big Picture Behaviour Statements

Grade 6 behaviour statements
Write a Grade 6 Seeing the Big Picture statement around a clear senior responsibility
At Grade 6, Seeing the Big Picture is about connecting your area of responsibility to wider government priorities, external developments and the needs of people affected by the work. The strongest examples show what you personally decided, how you led through others and what changed beyond your immediate team.

Seeing the Big Picture is about connecting your area of responsibility to wider government priorities, external developments and the needs of people affected by the work. For a Grade 6 role, this usually means leading a substantial programme, service or policy area while shaping decisions with senior leaders and partners beyond your immediate team.

A strong example should make clear how you identified the wider strategic issue, translated it into priorities for your area and influenced decisions beyond your own team. The result should show a better aligned strategy, avoided duplication, stronger ministerial or executive confidence, or outcomes that worked across organisational boundaries.

What are the Seeing the Big Picture criteria at Grade 6 level?

The official senior-grade behaviour guidance contains 4 points for Seeing the Big Picture. Your vacancy may assess only selected parts, but the statement should make the relevant wording easy to see in your evidence.

Criterion 1
develop and maintain an understanding of economic, social, political, environmental and technological developments to ensure activity is relevant
Show that you actively scan the environment and use relevant developments to test whether current activity still makes sense.
Criterion 2
ensure plans and activities in your area of work reflect wider strategic priorities and communicate effectively with senior leaders to influence future strategies
Connect your plans to wider priorities and show how you gave senior leaders evidence that influenced future direction.
Criterion 3
adopt a government wide perspective to ensure alignment of activity and policy
Look beyond departmental or functional ownership, including where alignment requires you to change or stop activity in your own area.
Criterion 4
bring together views, perspectives and diverse needs of stakeholders to gain a broader understanding of the issues surrounding policies and activities
Use different stakeholder perspectives to understand the full issue, especially people affected in different ways by the policy or service.

How to structure your statement

Use a simple structure: Situation, Task, Action and Result. Do not place these labels in the final statement unless the application specifically asks for them.

Situation

Use one or two sentences to set the context. State the service, programme, policy or professional area and the problem that made the example important.

Task

Make your accountability explicit. For Seeing the Big Picture, the task should identify how you identified the wider strategic issue, translated it into priorities for your area and influenced decisions beyond your own team.

Action

Give most of the words to the decisions and actions that demonstrate Seeing the Big Picture. Explain how you used evidence, led or involved others and responded when the situation changed. For this behaviour, keep the action centred on how you identified the wider strategic issue, translated it into priorities for your area and influenced decisions beyond your own team.

Result

Show what changed because of your action. A strong result may include a better aligned strategy, avoided duplication, stronger ministerial or executive confidence, or outcomes that worked across organisational boundaries. Use accurate measures where they help, but keep the result tied to the behaviour.

Subscribers can unlock practical guidance for turning the official criteria into a high-scoring Grade 6 Seeing the Big Picture statement, plus three complete examples written around Grade 6 accountability and impact.

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