HEO Leadership Behaviour Statements

HEO application guidance

Build a focused Leadership statement around the exact criteria, your personal judgement and a result that proves the effect of your actions.

What is Leadership?

Leadership is about giving people clarity, confidence and support so they can deliver well.

At HEO level, a strong example should show that you can set direction, champion inclusion, role-model the expected standards, recognise achievement and deal with conflict or poor behaviour. The scale should be a defined service, project, team or workstream where your own judgement is visible, while recognising the authority of senior leaders and specialist colleagues.

The assessor should be able to trace the official criteria through your actions. Mentioning the behaviour or repeating the wording does not prove it.

What are the HEO Leadership criteria?

Official HEO/SEO Success Profiles criteria

Your evidence should make every criterion visible through something you personally understood, decided, communicated, changed or achieved.

Criterion 1
“ensure colleagues and stakeholders have a clear understanding of objectives, activities and time-frames”
Show how you translated direction into outcomes, activities, ownership and time-frames.
Criterion 2
“take into account different individual needs, views, and ideas, championing inclusion and equality of opportunity for all”
Explain how inclusion and equality affected task design, support or opportunity.
Criterion 3
“consider the impacts of own and team’s activities on stakeholders and end users”
Demonstrate awareness of consequences for stakeholders and end users beyond the immediate team.
Criterion 4
“role-model commitment and satisfaction with role”
Show visible personal behaviour that gave others confidence, especially under pressure.
Criterion 5
“recognise and praise the achievements of others to drive positivity within the team”
Explain how you credited real contributions and used recognition to reinforce good performance.
Criterion 6
“effectively manage conflict, misconduct and non-inclusive behaviour, raising with senior managers where appropriate”
Use a real conflict or conduct issue and show prompt, fair action and escalation where appropriate.

How to structure a 250-word statement

Use Situation, Task, Action and Result as an editing structure. Do not write the labels into the application unless the vacancy asks for them. Keep the setup short and make the action section carry the Leadership evidence.

Situation

Set the context quickly. Name the service, project, risk or change and why it mattered.

Task

Make your responsibility and decision authority clear. Avoid hiding behind the team.

Action

Use most of the word count here. Show how you set direction, champion inclusion, role-model the expected standards, recognise achievement and deal with conflict or poor behaviour.

Result

Prove the outcome with credible measures, service impact, reduced risk, learning or sustained change.

Members can unlock the complete HEO Leadership scoring method below, followed by three full statements close to 250 words, detailed explanations of why they work and a final criterion check.

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