If you find yourself wondering how the new version of the NFCC Leadership Framework will impact your assessment and promotions results, you’re not alone.

Measures need to be consistent and reliable. For instance, you need to be confident that the 5-metre length of hose you ordered last month is the same length when you order it now, and not slightly shorter because the units of measurement have changed.

It’s the same with the NFCC Leadership Framework.

Our Career Progression Gateway assessments data reflects thousands of candidates’ performance from Crew to Chief Fire Officer from all over the UK FRS. And that’s very handy for establishing patterns and trends within and across Services.

Analysing this data we can share key information, such as where Organisational Effectiveness performance is below par; when Personal Impact scores are high but Outstanding Leadership low; where Service Delivery is prioritised at Leading Others but not at Leading the Function levels; where development initiatives have resulted in a steady upturn in one leadership area but not in another. We can evaluate, interpret and make recommendations, all in support of improved culture, performance, leadership and wellbeing. We can provide comparisons between FRS’s, highlighting where one Service is excelling and another would benefit from best practice learning.

So what happens when the foundation framework of this data changes?

The good news is, it needn’t be too complicated. But you do need to know what you are looking for, because it is all too easy to mess with your data, and suddenly reliable information underpinning trends, is no longer relevant or comparable.

In an assessment context, to keep the integrity of your data set, to keep these broad guidelines in mind.

  • 1

    It’s ok to split constructs up (the descriptors you find under each of the 4 headings). Just try to keep them within the same heading over consecutive assessments, so trend reporting is consistent.

  • 2

    It’s difficult to know what you’re evaluating when there are too many things going on at once, and it will make scores less reliable to have too many concepts evaluated all within the same single score. How will the candidate know which one they did or didn’t demonstrate?

  • 3

    For example- in ‘Leading the Function/ Outstanding Leadership’, break down ‘Collaborates with others both inside and outside the organisation// to set clear objectives// actively monitoring the performance of the function// giving constructive developmental feedback’ as this construct covers too many different things to be able to evaluate someone fairly; one score can’t cover everything, and introduces far too much variation in how each assessor will be scoring it.

  • 4

    If you are worried about losing the construct detail from the assessment, look for where the concepts are repeated under other headings, and where you have measured these concepts previously. There is still a fair amount of repetition in the framework so chances are you can evaluate them elsewhere. Do try to keep them within the same headings as you have used previously for consistency in your trend reporting.

  • 5

    Don’t use both constructs where they are very similar, but represented under different headings. For instance, ‘Promotes a learning ethos both internally and externally…,’ is found in Organisational Effectiveness and ‘Fosters and embeds the principles of a just and learning organisation’ is in Outstanding Leadership, but it might be quite difficult to differentiate them, so choose one to measure. If you look at the different constructs and across the different levels, development and learning tends to sit most consistently in Outstanding Leadership. Similarly, ‘Uses evidence from their own and other organisations to inform the service’s strategy and direction’ (Service Delivery) and ‘benchmarks organisational performance against other fire and rescue services, other public services, and other relevant business sectors’ (Organisational Effectiveness)- pick one to evaluate, under the same heading you have used before.

  • 6

    If you are including similar constructs from different headings to your exercise score sheet, it might not be a fair measure. For instance, if your exercise evaluates both ‘Champions innovation, including new technology, to improve service delivery’ (Service Delivery), and ‘Promotes a learning ethos both internally and externally, creating conditions for innovation’ (Organisational Effectiveness). Your results will be skewed by rating what is essentially the same thing twice.

  • 7

    It’s also ok to disregard phrases which may not have a consistent meaning to all your candidates and assessors (i.e. ‘helps everyone…be their true selves at work’ or ‘bring their whole self to work’). The less open to interpretation statements are, the better your scoring and therefore results will be.

  • 8
    Design exercises with enough complexity. This means you can measure a district range of different constructs without starting to merge them into a generic measure of ‘good performance’ without sufficient differentiation to be meaningful and useful. This can be a problem in presentation exercises.

It’s worth remembering that the leadership framework serves as a guide; it isn’t designed to be followed to the letter. A lot of the messiness of the earlier frameworks has been tidied up. But some things have shifted from one heading to another, which you need to look out for, so you can adjust your expectation of what the data is telling you.

I know this all sounds a bit OTT- does it really matter? Well yes, if you want reliable assessment outcomes. If you want to know that the pool of candidates, you have identified for onward progression does represent the individuals who are most aligned with the Leadership Behaviours. If you want to be able to accurately address and develop under-performance; if you want to be able to develop and support individuals to have a positive impact on culture and functioning. It’s important for your data set to be accurate so the organisation can trust the results, and both the people being assessed and those tasked with supporting their on-going development have data they can rely on.

The devil is in the detail, and data matters.