Given the unique and multi-cultural nature of the organization, it is important that the IAEA has its own leadership model that draws on its own best practices, and on experience elsewhere. Each DDG was asked to identify two areas where there are colleagues who are exemplars of best practice in one or more aspects of leadership. The staff and managers from these areas were interviewed to understand "What is being done right?". The results of those consultations led to the drafting of the Leadership Blueprint.

2. Introduction to Leadership and
the Blueprint Management
The IAEA Leadership Blueprint was created by finding In the IAEA we need to:
excellent leadership in the Agency and exploring how it works.
Excellent leaders, their staff and colleagues were interviewed to Innovate and Administer
discover their attitudes, skills and how they brought the best
from other people. All the information was collated into the key Develop and Maintain
themes and behaviours which constitute the Blueprint. So, the
Leadership Blueprint is not imported from elsewhere, but is Inspire and Control
based on the best leadership in the Agency, reflecting its skills
and diversity. Look long term and Look short term
The IAEA needs a leadership blueprint because it shows Ask what and why and Ask how and when
managers what is expected of them to be successful as leaders.
All managers can use the Blueprint to assess their strengths and (Lead) and (Manage)
identify the areas where they need to develop.
The Blueprint is aspirational – no manager is likely to be
excellent in all the skills and behaviours in the model, but the
IAEA wants its managers to aspire to make the most of their
strengths and develop continuously to become the very best
leaders to deliver the Agency’s objectives.
4 5

3. Influencing
Being
Self Adding
Customers
Aware Value Attitude
Leading
Leading through
Self Relationships
Being Learning
Emotionally and Communication Individually
Intelligent Adapting
T
Teams
Giving Focusing
Direction on the
Customer
Leading Leading
through through
Delivery Thinking
Improving Creative
Continuously Joining up
and Strategic
Flexible
Making
Decisions
6 7

4. Leading Self
Being
Self Adding
Aware Value Leadership starts with leading oneself. The best leaders are self aware.
They recognize their strengths and use them fully; they recognize their
Leading weaknesses and try conscientiously to develop their skills, while
Self making the most of others who possess those skills. They know how they
Being Learning
impact on others, where they can make the best contribution
Emotionally and and how to manage their emotions positively.
Intelligent Adapting

6. Leading Self Adding
Value
Adding Value
Desirable behaviours ✓ Undesirable behaviours ✗
Knowing how I add value in my role: Continuing in the usual way:
✓ recognizing my particular skills and ✗ behaving without awareness or
strengths, e.g. innovative thinking, reflection
influencing, etc. ✗ not using the full range of skills that
✓ using them deliberately to complement others possess
the skills of people around me
Pursuing a personal agenda:
Having no room for ego: ✗ aiming to enhance personal reputation
✓ recognizing that the Agency’s or power at the Agency’s expense
objectives are more important than ✗ ignoring the resources of people
my own around me
✓ deferring to the skills, knowledge or
experience which others may have Failing to provide a service to others:
✗ failing to prioritize
Managing my time: ✗ interfering, micro-managing, taking
✓ prioritizing my time on key tasks on too much
✓ knowing when to intervene, to say ✗ not being available to key stakeholders
‘yes’ and ‘no’
✓ planning my diary so that I am
available to key stakeholders
12 13

7. Leading Self Learning
and
Adapting
Learning and Adapting
Desirable behaviours ✓ Undesirable behaviours ✗
Learning: Continuing in the usual way:
✓ checking with others what went well, ✗ believing I have got it right or I am too
what could go better old to learn
✓ openly taking ideas from colleagues ✗ dismissing others’ ideas
and applying best practice ✗ ignoring opportunities to learn, e.g. at
project completion
Adapting behaviour:
✓ learning from experience which Ignoring evidence about my style:
behaviours suit certain people ✗ continuing to behave in the same way
and situations rather than learning new approaches
✓ consciously adapting style
Directing:
Challenging my own thinking: ✗ assuming I have all the answers
✓ inviting others to challenge and know the best way to proceed
assumptions and ideas ✗ closing down discussion/dismissing
✓ always exploring different approaches new or different ideas
Continuous learning: Knowing everything:
✓ improving knowledge and skills in ✗ believing I know enough
management and leadership, e.g. ✗ believing that management and
reflecting, reading, attending leadership are not important
courses/conferences
14 15

8. Leading Self Being
Emotionally
Intelligent
Being Emotionally Intelligent
Desirable behaviours ✓ Undesirable behaviours ✗
Understanding my feelings: Not paying attention to my feelings:
✓ paying attention to how I am feeling ✗ disregarding the impact of my feelings
about people or situations and how to ✗ allowing my feelings to hijack my
manage my feelings behaviour
✓ paying attention to how others
are feeling Avoiding or procrastinating:
✗ putting off taking action
Dealing with difficult situations:
✓ tackling complex or challenging Failing to decide or follow
situations, e.g. cross-department issues, through decisions:
poor performance ✗ finding reasons to avoid making
decisions
Decision making: ✗ missing critical deadlines or
✓ taking decisions even in difficult opportunities through a need to
circumstances know everything
✓ making decisions on the basis of ✗ re-visiting decisions, except when
best information available new factors require it
✓ sticking with decisions, especially
when under pressure, and being
flexible when circumstances change
16 17

9. Leading through
Relationships
Influencing
Positive
Customers
Attitude
Everything we do as leaders is conducted through relationships with
Leading
other people. We need to build effective working relationships with
through
Relationships other leaders, staff, colleagues and external stakeholders. The best
leaders learn to adapt their natural style and choose the best way of
Communication Individually relating to people in their context.
T
Teams

10. Leading through
Positive
Relationships Attitude
Positive Attitude
Desirable behaviours ✓ Undesirable behaviours ✗
Inspiring others: Holding on to authority:
✓ inspiring staff to perform to the best ✗ expecting staff to motivate themselves
of their ability ✗ retaining control over all team
✓ giving people the opportunity to activities
shine, e.g. chairing meetings ✗ allowing blame culture to develop
✓ backing up staff and accepting
responsibility and accountability Looking for mistakes and weaknesses:
✗ missing opportunities to reinforce
Focusing on the positive what I want
qualities of staff: ✗ over emphasizing the significance of
✓ reinforcing good behaviours and weaknesses
best practice
✓ coaching staff to transfer relevant Ignoring efforts:
skills to problem areas ✗ missing opportunities to boost
team morale
Recognizing and appreciating: ✗ not promoting staff’s success
✓ giving full recognition for people’s ✗ implying ownership of staff’s work
efforts and achievements inadvertently or for personal gain
✓ celebrating publicly when ✗ failing to be humble and
Agency objectives are met acknowledging that we all make
✓ passing on recognition to bosses mistakes
and to other staff
✓ saying sorry when things go wrong
20 21

11. Leading through
Relationships Influencing
Influencing
Desirable behaviours ✓ Undesirable behaviours ✗
Persuading: Empathising: Getting my own way: Missing what is important to others:
✓ ensuring that our aim is always to ✓ understanding other people’s ✗ focusing on my own agenda ✗ failing to understand where they are
meet the Agency’s objectives needs, goals and motivations ✗ relying on a narrow range of opinions; coming from
✓ reaching out and including ✓ demonstrating that understanding failing to bring along interested parties ✗ showing a lack of respect for other
stakeholders’ point of view is a means of collaborating effectively ✗ wanting to win the arguments peoples’ point of view; failing to find
✓ looking for the common ground ✓ using questions as a means of common ground
and finding win-win solutions drawing out views, options ✗ proving that I am ‘right’; generating a
and solutions narrower range of options
22 23

13. Leading through
Relationships Individually
Leading Individuals
Desirable behaviours ✓ Undesirable behaviours ✗
Confronting issues: Avoiding taking action:
✓ taking responsibility ✗ being passive and failing to assert
✓ tackling performance issues responsibility
or personality clashes ✗ allowing bad situations to continue or
deteriorate
Delegating:
✓ providing clear guidance and Holding on to tasks or abandoning staff:
expectations ✗ failing to make clear what is needed
✓ providing coaching support as needed ✗ getting my own way rather than
to develop skills developing; not providing support
✓ trusting staff to get on with the task ✗ micro-managing
without interfering
Not building relationships:
Getting to know people: ✗ treating people as secondary to
✓ showing care for people the task
✓ finding out what is important to them ✗ not paying attention to peoples’
personally, professionally and motivators and values
culturally ✗ missing opportunities to coach, give
✓ taking every opportunity to develop feedback and encourage
staff ✗ pursuing my own agenda; not valuing
✓ listening actively to staff other ideas or concerns
26 27

14. Leading through
Relationships T
Teams
Teams
Desirable behaviours ✓ Undesirable behaviours ✗
Providing clarity: Lacking direction:
✓ knowing where the team is heading ✗ leaving the team to make sense for
and what success looks like themselves about how they contribute
✓ being clear about team tasks, to objectives
objectives, roles, responsibilities and ✗ making assumptions that roles and
accountabilities responsibilities are understood
Providing leadership: Working autonomously:
✓ trusting and empowering staff ✗ interfering in work
✓ creating flexible teams (matrix–based) ✗ keeping teams too rigid
✓ acting as advocate for my team ✗ failing to stand by the team
Including staff: Taking decisions in isolation:
✓ seeking staff participation and ✗ missing out on the creativity of staff
contributions to decisions ✗ failing to transmit information which
✓ holding regular staff meetings to binds people to the Agency
inform and consult ✗ conveying the feeling that staff’s
✓ valuing staff by consulting and views are not valued
involving them
Focusing exclusively on tasks:
Building team culture: ✗ attending to the tasks (‘what’) at the
✓ creating a culture where the skills and exclusion of people, processes and
strengths of all staff are used and the culture (’how’)
team delivers ✗ discouraging or not taking part in
✓ enabling team members to get to know activities designed to build a sense
each other and to learn how to work of a team
effectively together
28 29

15. Leading through
Relationships Communication
Communication
Desirable behaviours ✓ Undesirable behaviours ✗
Giving constructive feedback: Giving:
✓ being honest about performance ✗ avoiding addressing performance
✓ giving feedback automatically, issues
naturally, every day, as part of ✗ giving feedback only occasionally
the culture ✗ being critical, focusing on weaknesses,
✓ ‘catching people being good’ rather than reinforcing strengths
Communicating in different ways: One size fits all:
✓ using a range of communication ✗ communicating the same way
media – face to face, visual, verbal, with everyone
telling stories, etc. ✗ treating all people and situations the
✓ choosing the best ways to same way without preparing the best
communicate to leaders, staff and approach
colleagues ✗ missing out on the skills in the team
✓ using the communication skills
of people around me Staying in my office:
✗ focusing on tasks and not
Being accessible: prioritizing leadership
✓ having an open door ✗ being too busy to support staff
✓ making myself available to support when needed
my staff ✗ being remote to junior members
✓ making the effort to be visible to of staff
my staff
Delegating bad news:
Communicating difficult messages: ✗ giving a manager my job of delivering
✓ taking responsibility for giving bad a difficult message
news or tough decisions
30 31

16. Leading through
Thinking
A key role we play as leaders is to encourage others to make the most
Leading
of their intellectual resources. At times, we need to think differently
through
Thinking about issues – to approach them from a new angle, to challenge the
conventional way of doing things. Excellent leaders welcome new
Creative
and Strategic thinking and develop the techniques to develop creativity and
Flexible flexibility in others.

17. Leading through Thinking Creative
and
Flexible
Creative and Flexible
Desirable behaviours ✓ Undesirable behaviours ✗
Being flexible in my thinking: Thinking within the same
✓ adapting to a changing world; being mental models:
ready to change course ✗ resisting possible changes
Generating new thinking: Using the same approaches all the time:
✓ being open minded to new thinking, ✗ being habitual and staying within my
ideas, options and solutions comfort zone
✓ exploring ways of finding creative ✗ fearing where exploration might lead
solutions within myself and my team
Being sceptical:
Running solution finding sessions: ✗ resisting techniques brought in from
✓ using tools and techniques which help other disciplines
people to share knowledge and ideas,
and ways forward for tackling issues
34 35

18. Leading through Thinking Strategic
Strategic
Desirable behaviours ✓ Undesirable behaviours ✗
Grasping complex situations: Over-simplifying complex situations:
✓ tolerating ambiguity and allowing ✗ trying to cope with complexity by
strategy to emerge over-simplifying issues
✓ understanding the complexities of a ✗ tackling parts of the issue as though
situation and identifying the most they stand alone
important issues ✗ being paralysed by complexity
✓ taking action on the most important
issues Operating within existing mindsets:
✗ taking assumptions for granted
Identifying assumptions: ✗ trying to solve problems rather than
✓ challenging assumptions about thinking strategically
stakeholders and ways of doing things
with other leaders, colleagues and staff Using a narrow database:
✓ using tools and techniques to develop ✗ closing off new or different
strategic thinking information
✗ making my mind up too soon
Gathering information:
✓ seeking information and evidence
from a range of sources to inform
thinking
✓ being curious and having an
open mind
36 37

19. Leading through
Delivery
Giving Focusing
Direction on the
Customer
All the activity of the Agency should be geared to delivering its
Leading objectives. Great leaders provide the vision to their staff that aligns
through
Delivery
all their work behind these objectives. Such leaders make difficult
decisions and collaborate with colleagues to make the most of the
Improving
Continuously Joining up Agency’s resources. They are clear about what the customers need
and continuously attend to learning and quality.
Making
Decisions

20. Leading through Delivery Giving
Direction
Giving Direction
Desirable behaviours ✓ Undesirable behaviours ✗
Giving direction: Taking a local view:
✓ communicating the goals and vision ✗ focusing on my own area without
of the Agency thinking Agency-wide
✓ getting buy in to the vision ✗ failing to engage staff in corporate
✓ aligning individuals, teams, plans and goals
activities behind corporate goals ✗ failing to enable staff to see the value
of what they are doing in achieving
Being corporate: Agency goals
✓ supporting other parts of the
Agency to achieve corporate goals Being selfish:
✓ implementing corporate decisions, ✗ missing the bigger picture
even when I disagree ✗ rubbishing colleagues and decisions
without regard to its impact
Providing ‘in front’ leadership:
✓ taking the lead, being visible, making Being passive:
things happen and inspiring staff ✗ ignoring my power to inspire, enhance
to follow me motivation and facilitate collaboration
40 41

21. Leading through Delivery Focusing
on the
Customer
Focusing on the Customer
Desirable behaviours ✓ Undesirable behaviours ✗
Tuning in to needs of customers: Focusing on other matters:
✓ understanding the political realities ✗ failing to understand the context
✓ understanding the needs of all customers and ✗ misreading what might be needed
especially the Member States
Delivering what we want to deliver:
Delivering the product: ✗ providing piecemeal solutions
✓ delivering coherent solutions ✗ not aligning all activities to meeting
✓ producing the products that the customer wants what the customer wants
✓ committing myself and my team to achieve
and make a difference for
42 43
Member States

22. Leading through Delivery Joining up
Joining Up
Desirable behaviours ✓
Making the most of the
Agency’s resources:
✓ cutting across silos
✓ collaborating
✓ managing overlaps and exploiting
synergies across Divisions and
Departments
✓ always looking for ways to optimize
resources
✓ joining up activity across the Agency
✓ overcoming jealousies and
competitiveness
Undesirable behaviours ✗
Keeping resources local:
✗ keeping knowledge and activity
only within my team
✗ not looking for collaboration
✗ holding on to resources needed
by others
45

23. Leading through Delivery Making
Decisions
Making Decisions
Desirable behaviours ✓ Undesirable behaviours ✗
Making decisions: Avoiding making decisions:
✓ assessing and managing risks ✗ over-analysing
✓ daring to make decisions ✗ being fearful of making mistakes
✓ involving people, but resisting ✗ taking too long to decide
over–consensus ✗ passing the buck
✓ standing by decisions and making ✗ allowing a blame culture to develop
myself accountable
✓ accepting that mistakes will be made
and helping people to learn from them
46 47

24. Leading through Delivery Improving
Continuously
Improving Continuously
Desirable behaviours ✓ Undesirable behaviours ✗
Improving: Staying the same:
✓ seeking best practice everywhere ✗ thinking that I have nothing to learn
✓ applying best practice ✗ promoting a task culture rather than a
✓ learning from elsewhere in the learning culture
Agency through working on ✗ protecting my knowledge rather than
cross-cutting issues sharing
Demanding high standards: Assuming that excellence just happens:
✓ being clear what I expect from my staff ✗ giving ambiguous instructions
✓ reinforcing high quality work ✗ focusing on weaknesses rather than
✓ knowing when things can be ‘good building on the best
enough’ ✗ insisting that everything has to be to
✓ not accepting low quality work and the same standard
working with staff to improve ✗ allowing poor performance to continue
performance
Focusing on tasks:
Improving skills and knowledge: ✗ prioritizing things other than staff
✓ ensuring that staff are trained and development and training
equipped to do their job well
48 49

25. IAEA
Leadership Blueprint
Leadership Values ✓
Professional Respectful
This means that I am: This means that I:
✓ rigorous ✓ treat others as adults
✓ organized ✓ trust
✓ credible: knowledgeable ✓ acknowledge the roles and
and technically competent responsibilities of others
✓ accountable ✓ show dignity
✓ learning continuously ✓ show fairness
✓ strategic and looking ahead ✓ deliver on promises
✓ tough and determined in tackling ✓ honour confidentiality
global issues
✓ proud and humble
and have:
✓ high standards but no blame
✓ a reputation for quality
✓ integrity
Collegial
This means that I:
✓ co-operate and don’t compete
✓ want to share and collaborate
✓ show solidarity with colleagues
✓ are open and transparent
50 www.iaea.org