Master the leadership skills write-up. Templates, examples, and strategies for articulating your leadership capabilities in reviews, applications, and self-assessments.
Written by Laura Bouttell • Fri 9th January 2026
A leadership skills write-up is a structured documentation of your leadership capabilities, achievements, and development—used for performance reviews, job applications, development planning, and self-assessment—that transforms vague leadership claims into specific, credible evidence of capability. Mastering this skill proves essential because how you articulate leadership often matters as much as the leadership itself.
Many capable leaders struggle to document their capabilities effectively. They default to generic statements like "strong leadership skills" or "team player" that convey nothing specific. Others list responsibilities rather than achievements, describing what they did rather than what they accomplished. The result: their written representation undersells their actual capability.
Whether you're preparing for a performance review, crafting a job application, building a professional portfolio, or planning your development, effective leadership write-ups follow specific principles that distinguish compelling documentation from forgettable boilerplate.
Leadership documentation serves multiple purposes across your career. Understanding each context helps you tailor your approach.
| Context | Purpose | Key Focus |
|---|---|---|
| Performance Reviews | Demonstrate achievement, justify ratings | Results, impact, growth |
| Job Applications | Prove capability for target role | Relevant experience, transferability |
| Promotion Cases | Evidence readiness for next level | Expanded scope, strategic contribution |
| Development Planning | Identify gaps and priorities | Current state, improvement areas |
| Professional Portfolios | Establish credibility | Comprehensive capability demonstration |
| Award Nominations | Highlight exceptional contribution | Specific achievements, impact |
Performance Reviews Focus on specific period achievements. Connect your leadership to organisational outcomes. Demonstrate growth from previous review.
Job Applications Emphasise transferable capabilities relevant to target role. Anticipate what hiring managers seek. Provide evidence appropriate to application format (CV, cover letter, application form).
Promotion Cases Show readiness for broader scope. Demonstrate you're already operating at the next level. Address potential concerns about capability gaps.
Development Planning Be honest about weaknesses. Focus on improvement opportunities. Balance aspiration with realism.
Effective write-ups follow structures that communicate clearly and credibly.
The STAR method provides the most widely used structure for documenting leadership examples:
Situation: Describe the context and challenge Task: Explain your specific responsibility Action: Detail what you did (your leadership) Result: Quantify the outcome and impact
Example STAR Write-Up:
Situation: Our department faced declining engagement scores and rising turnover that threatened delivery capacity.
Task: As team lead, I was responsible for improving team dynamics and retention while maintaining productivity.
Action: I implemented weekly one-to-ones focused on career development, restructured team meetings to increase involvement, created peer recognition programme, and advocated successfully for overdue promotions.
Result: Engagement scores improved by 23 points, turnover decreased from 35% to 12%, and productivity actually increased 15% as team capability stabilised.
Challenge-Action-Result (CAR) Simplified version focusing on problem, response, and outcome. Useful for brief descriptions.
Context-Action-Impact (CAI) Similar to STAR but emphasises impact. Useful when outcomes were particularly significant.
Problem-Approach-Outcome (PAO) Focuses on problem-solving leadership. Useful for analytical or technical contexts.
Effective write-ups cover relevant skills with specific evidence.
Strategic Thinking Document instances where you thought beyond immediate tasks to broader implications. Include examples of anticipating challenges, identifying opportunities, or shaping direction.
Communication Provide examples of effective communication: presenting to senior stakeholders, managing difficult conversations, rallying teams around objectives, written communication that achieved results.
Decision-Making Describe significant decisions you made, including the analysis, trade-offs considered, and outcomes. Show judgement under uncertainty.
People Development Document how you developed others: coaching conversations, delegation that grew capability, feedback that improved performance, mentoring relationships.
Influence and Collaboration Provide examples of achieving results through influence rather than authority. Include cross-functional collaboration, stakeholder management, and coalition building.
Change Leadership Describe how you led through change: initiating improvements, managing transitions, overcoming resistance, sustaining momentum.
For each skill, include:
| Element | What to Include |
|---|---|
| Skill Name | Specific capability being documented |
| Context | Situation where skill was demonstrated |
| Actions Taken | What you specifically did |
| Results Achieved | Quantified outcomes where possible |
| Learning Applied | How experience informed future leadership |
The difference between forgettable and compelling write-ups lies in execution details.
Be Specific, Not Generic Generic: "Led a team to improve performance." Specific: "Led an eight-person team through a restructure that improved customer response time from 48 hours to 6 hours."
Quantify Where Possible Weak: "Significantly improved results." Strong: "Increased revenue by 34% while reducing costs by 12%."
Use Active Voice Passive: "The project was completed ahead of schedule." Active: "I delivered the project three weeks early."
Focus on Your Contribution Unclear: "We achieved record sales." Clear: "I developed the pricing strategy that enabled our record sales quarter."
Show Growth and Learning Add reflection: "This experience taught me the importance of stakeholder engagement early in change initiatives."
These templates provide starting frameworks to adapt for your context.
LEADERSHIP SUMMARY
[2-3 sentence overview of leadership contribution during review period]
KEY LEADERSHIP ACHIEVEMENTS
Achievement 1: [Title]
Situation: [Context and challenge]
Action: [What you did]
Result: [Quantified outcome]
Impact: [Broader significance]
Achievement 2: [Title]
[Same structure]
Achievement 3: [Title]
[Same structure]
LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT
Skills strengthened: [Specific capabilities improved]
Development actions taken: [Training, experiences, feedback sought]
Areas for continued growth: [Honest self-assessment]
LEADERSHIP GOALS
[Specific objectives for next period]
LEADERSHIP EXPERIENCE
[Role Title], [Organisation], [Dates]
Key leadership responsibilities:
• [Responsibility 1 with scope indicator]
• [Responsibility 2 with scope indicator]
Leadership achievements:
• [STAR-formatted achievement 1]
• [STAR-formatted achievement 2]
Team scope: [Direct reports, indirect influence]
Budget responsibility: [If applicable]
CURRENT LEADERSHIP CAPABILITY ASSESSMENT
Strengths:
• [Skill 1]: Evidence - [Specific demonstration]
• [Skill 2]: Evidence - [Specific demonstration]
Development Areas:
• [Skill 1]: Current state - [Honest assessment]
Target state - [Desired capability]
Development approach - [How you'll improve]
• [Skill 2]: [Same structure]
DEVELOPMENT ACTIONS
[Specific activities with timelines]
SUCCESS MEASURES
[How you'll know you've improved]
Different readers need different emphasis.
Many leadership write-ups falter when documenting influence without formal authority.
Project Leadership "Led cross-functional project team of six colleagues through four-month implementation, coordinating across three departments without formal authority."
Process Improvement "Identified and implemented workflow improvement that reduced processing time by 40%, requiring buy-in from five stakeholder groups."
Peer Influence "Facilitated resolution of conflict between two teams by creating structured dialogue that addressed underlying concerns."
Upward Influence "Advocated successfully for resource investment by building business case that convinced senior leadership to approve £200K budget."
Expert Leadership "Served as technical decision-maker on architecture choices affecting entire product team, despite individual contributor role."
Effective write-ups require evidence. Systematic collection prevents scrambling when documentation is needed.
Maintain a Leadership Log Weekly note significant leadership moments: decisions made, conversations navigated, results achieved, feedback received.
Save Key Documents Retain emails praising your contribution, project outcomes, metrics demonstrating impact, stakeholder feedback.
Request Regular Feedback Seek input from colleagues, reports, and managers. Document specific comments.
Track Metrics Monitor quantifiable outcomes: team performance, project delivery, engagement scores, business results you influenced.
| Evidence Type | Examples | How to Document |
|---|---|---|
| Outcomes | Revenue, savings, efficiency | Metrics, reports |
| Feedback | Praise, recognition | Emails, messages |
| Growth | Promotions, development | Records, testimonials |
| Influence | Decisions shaped | Decision documentation |
| Development | Others' progress | Their feedback, career moves |
Length depends on purpose. Performance review summaries might be 500-1000 words. Job application leadership sections might be 200-400 words. Development plans might be 1-2 pages. Prioritise quality over quantity—concise, specific content outperforms lengthy generic descriptions. Include enough detail to be credible without overwhelming readers.
Focus on growth and learning rather than scale. Small-scope leadership done well demonstrates capability. Document how you led within your current scope: coordinating small teams, improving processes, developing peers, influencing decisions. Frame early-career leadership appropriately—evaluators assess relative to experience level, not absolute achievement.
For development planning, yes—honest assessment enables growth. For performance reviews, thoughtfully framed learning from setbacks can demonstrate maturity. For job applications, focus on what you learned rather than the failure itself. Frame failures as "challenges overcome" or "learning experiences" with specific takeaways. Never include failures without demonstrating learning.
Translate qualitative outcomes into measurable terms: stakeholder satisfaction improvements, team engagement shifts, process step reductions, time savings, error rate decreases. If numbers genuinely don't exist, use comparative language: "first to achieve," "largest in department history," "recognised by senior leadership." Describe scope and scale even when precise metrics aren't available.
Review quarterly at minimum. Update immediately after significant achievements. Before performance reviews, investment several hours in comprehensive revision. Maintaining current documentation prevents the scramble of trying to recall achievements from months earlier. Regular updates also support continuous career development attention.
Use consistent base content adapted for each context. Core achievements and skills remain constant; emphasis, detail level, and framing adjust. Performance reviews emphasise recent period; job applications emphasise transferability; development plans emphasise gaps. Never simply copy-paste without tailoring—readers notice generic content.
Be honest about your specific role. Use "I" for what you personally did and "we" for team accomplishments. Clarify your contribution: "I led the team that..." or "I contributed to team success by..." Credibility comes from accuracy—overclaiming individual credit for team work undermines rather than enhances your case.
The ability to document leadership effectively is itself a leadership skill—one that translates capability into recognition, opens opportunities, and accelerates career progression. Invest time in mastering leadership write-ups. Collect evidence continuously. Use structured frameworks. Be specific, honest, and strategic. The leaders who articulate their capabilities compellingly gain advantages that equally capable but less articulate peers miss.