You may be familiar with the term KSA, Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities, used widely in HR and federal hiring.  This series uses Attributes in place of Abilities, following the framework established in the US Army FM 6-22 and adopted by major leadership development organizations, including the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) and Academy to Innovate HR (AIHR).  The distinction is intentional.  Abilities describe what you can do.  Attributes describe what kind of person you are: your integrity, your humility, your composure under pressure.  In a leadership development context, these differences matter.  Please keep in mind that no list is entirely exhaustive, and leadership research continues to evolve.  This list reflects the best current understanding from reputable open sources as well as US Army ADP 6-22 and FM 6-22, which are foundational to this framework.  This version of a KSA list is unique because it attempts to further break down the KSAs into basic, advanced, and mastery-level skills, which may be more relatable to industry-standard leadership levels and positions.

All good leaders should practice being a better leader, beginning with the basics, and only after mastering the basics, move on to advanced-level skills, followed by mastery-level leadership skills. 

Familiarize yourself with the leadership KSAs, include your boss and colleagues, stay focused on the goal, and keep the 10,000-hour theory in mind, and you will become a truly great leader. 

Below is a list of 49 KSAs sorted into basic or foundational, advanced, and mastery level elements.  Elements with additional information are linked to those articles.

Basic or Foundational Leadership Elements.

Knowledge:

K01 Self-Knowledge: Understanding your values, beliefs, emotional triggers, cognitive biases, and leadership style, including how others experience you, is the starting point of all leadership.  You cannot lead others without first knowing yourself.

K02 Followership and Leading Up: This is among the most overlooked leadership knowledge areas.  The dynamics of being a good subordinate, how to influence upward, manage your relationship with your own leader, and understand what followership demands are, are the beginning of being an effective leader.

K03 Emotional Intelligence Theory: Goleman’s four domains, including self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management, are defining traits of effective leaders.  Understanding the theory enables intentional practice.

K04 Ethical and Moral Reasoning: Fundamental ethical theories (consequentialism, deontology, virtue ethics) and how to apply them to leadership decisions under pressure are the engine of character under stress.

Skills:

S01 Active Listening: The disciplined practice of hearing intent, not just words, suspending judgment, noticing nonverbals, reflecting understanding, asking clarifying questions, and, when appropriate, echoing back the message.  Repeating what you’ve heard is the truest way to validate that you’ve heard and understand the message. 

S02 Clear Communication: Conveying the right message to the right audience through the right channel at the right time, including writing, speaking, presenting, and adjusting for context, is essential to providing quality leadership. 

Attributes:

A01 Integrity: Doing what is right, legally and morally, even when no one is watching, even when it is costly, and even when it conflicts with what is easy or popular.

A02 Courage: Acting on conviction under pressure, including moral courage (doing right when it costs something) and personal courage (taking initiative in ambiguity).

A03 Accountability: Owning outcomes, good and bad, without deflection, blame, or excuse.  Taking responsibility before it is assigned and following through on commitments.

Advanced or Organizational Level Leadership Elements.

Knowledge:

K05 Decision Science and Theory: Leaders make decisions constantly.  Understanding the systematic ways the human brain produces predictable errors in judgment, confirmation bias, availability heuristic, anchoring, groupthink, and others is critical in establishing a solid decision-making process. 

K06 Power, Influence and Authority: Most leadership happens without direct authority.  The types of power available to leaders (positional, expert, referent, informational) and how influence operates with and without formal authority are essential knowledge for any leader.

K07 Team Dynamics: Understanding how teams form, develop trust, navigate conflict, reach peak performance, and eventually dissolve or reform is a critical element to avoiding leadership derailment.

K08 Conflict Dynamics: Knowledge of conflict sources precedes skill in resolving them.  Understanding the root causes of conflict (values, resources, roles, relationships, process) and how conflict escalates is the beginning of resolving conflict before it escalates. 

K09 Adult Learning and Development: How adults learn, what motivates growth, how experience shapes knowledge, and what leaders must provide to accelerate development in others is essential to developing individuals and teams.

K10 Succession Planning and Talent Development: How to identify high-potential individuals, structure development experiences, build pipelines, and prepare the organization to sustain leadership beyond any one person demonstrates stewardship of the organization.

Skills:

S03 Building Trust: Consistently behaving in ways that demonstrate reliability, honesty, competence, and genuine concern for others, over time and under pressure.

S04 Recognition and Motivation: Catching people doing right, expressing genuine appreciation, and connecting recognition to specific behaviors in ways that reinforce culture and sustain momentum.

S05 Prioritization and Focus: Identifying what matters most among competing demands, urgent requests, and organizational noise, and protecting that focus for yourself and your team.  Said another way, this is time and task management.

S06 Influencing Without Authority: Persuading, motivating, and aligning others, peers, superiors, and external partners when you have no positional authority over them.

S07 Team Empowerment: Creating the conditions for a group to do its best, structuring discussions, drawing out quieter voices, managing dominant personalities, and driving toward decisions.

S08 Delivering Feedback: Giving honest, specific, timely, and actionable feedback, both reinforcing and redirecting, in a way that is received and acted on rather than defended against.

S09 Receiving Feedback: The discipline of seeking input about your own impact, staying open rather than defensive, and using what you hear to actually change behavior.

S10 Delegation: Transferring genuine authority, not just tasks, to others, with appropriate clarity, support, and accountability, without micromanaging the execution.

S11 Decision-Making Under Pressure: Making sound, timely decisions with incomplete information, competing priorities, and high stakes, including when to decide, whom to involve, and how to own the outcome.

S12 Vision Communication: Translating a vision of a future idea into a compelling narrative that makes others want to follow, connecting daily work to meaningful purpose.

S13 Strategic Thinking and Planning: Connecting today’s decisions to long-range outcomes, anticipating second and third-order effects, and creating plans that survive contact with reality.

S14 Conflict Resolution: Directly addressing interpersonal and team tension, identifying root causes, creating conditions for honest dialogue, and reaching agreements that restore trust and function.

S15 Change Leadership: Actively guiding people through transitions, communicating why change is necessary, addressing resistance without dismissing it, and sustaining momentum.

S16 Negotiation: Finding agreements that serve the mission by identifying interests beneath positions, creating value, and reaching durable commitments, even in high-stakes situations.

S17 Coaching: Using questions, reflection, and targeted feedback to help another person discover their own solutions, grow their capabilities, and take ownership of their development.

S18 Mentorship: A long-term, relationship-based investment in another person’s growth, sharing experience, opening doors, providing perspective, and advocating on their behalf.

Attributes:

A04 Humility: Putting the organization, team, and purpose before ego, including the willingness to say “I don’t know,” ask for help, credit others, and be corrected.

A05 Resilience: Recovering from setbacks, absorbing adversity without losing direction, sustaining effort under sustained pressure, and modeling steadiness for others.

A06 Empathy: Genuinely feeling and understanding what others experience, not just intellectually acknowledging it, and letting that understanding shape how you lead.

A07 Self-Discipline: Consistently maintaining the standards, behaviors, and habits you expect of others, especially when motivation is low, circumstances are difficult, or no one is watching.

A08 Composure: Maintaining steady, measured behavior under stress, conflict, ambiguity, or crisis, projecting calm that stabilizes others rather than amplifying anxiety.

A09 Adaptability: Adjusting (short and long-term) thinking, approach, and behavior when circumstances change without losing core values or direction, and without requiring certainty before moving.

A10 Trustworthiness: Being reliably honest, consistent, and dependable, doing what you say you will do, keeping your confidence, and behaving the same whether observed or not.

A11 Curiosity: Sustaining genuine interest in learning, asking questions, exploring ideas outside your expertise, and continuing to be a student of your craft.

A12 Optimism: Seeing possibility in difficulty, maintaining a credible belief that the team can succeed, even when conditions are hard, and communicating that belief in a way others trust.

A13 Selfless Service: Placing the needs of the organization, the team, and the people you lead consistently above your own comfort, recognition, or advancement.

A14 Confidence: Projecting calm authority and decisive presence, not arrogance, in ways that give others reason to follow, especially when circumstances are uncertain.

A15 Respect: Treating every person as worthy of dignity regardless of position, performance, or relationship, and creating conditions where others feel genuinely valued.

Mastery or Continuous Organizational Improvement Leadership Elements. 

Knowledge Domain:

K11 Organizational Awareness: Leaders who truly understand how organizations actually work, formal structure, informal networks, culture, politics, unwritten rules, and power dynamics can operate at a higher level, getting things moving when others fail.

K12 Mission, Vision and Purpose: Knowing the organization’s reason for being, its intended future state, and how your team’s work connects to both is an important step for inspiring and motivating others to achieve organizational goals.

K13 Strategic Context and External Environment: Understanding the forces shaping your organization, industry, sector, and operating environment, including competitive landscape, regulatory environment, and macro trends, allows leaders to think strategically and provide valuable insight at every level. 

K14 Performance Systems and Accountability Structures: How goals are set, tracked, and evaluated, including Objectives and Key Results (OKRs), Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), performance reviews, and the psychology of accountability, which is a critical element when holding others accountable as well as driving organizational efficiency and improvements.

K15 Organizational Change Theory: How organizations change, why change fails, and what leaders must do at each phase is an essential element to creating lasting organizational improvements. 

K16 Cultural Intelligence: Knowledge of how culture shapes values, communication, conflict, and decision-making, which is essential for connecting a team to purpose across cultural lines.

Skills and Attributes.  Mastery level leadership is primarily focused on the systems, processes, policies, etc. of organizations, and therefore leadership skills and attribute elements are demonstrated at the basic and advanced leadership levels. 

Join us on this journey as we explore the fundamental elements of basic, advanced, and mastery-level leadership skills, as well as thoughts and ideas to grow your own. 

If you’ve enjoyed this article, please check out some of the other leadership articles where we explore the personal and professional side of leadership: Leadership Domain: Chapter 1 (1 of 3) and Leadership Domain: Chapter 1 (2 of 3).

Before moving on, feel free to use the checklist below to assess your personal leadership readiness.

1. Each item below is worth one point.  Score yourself honestly; give yourself a point only if you can answer yes with confidence, not just in theory.

   1.0 _____: Have you reflected on your leadership skills?  Personal reflection is the first step in a journey to becoming a better leader.

   1.0 _____: Have you reviewed and assessed yourself against a list of the leadership, Knowledge, Skills, and Attributes needed for the roles you hold?  Knowing where to start is the second step in becoming a better leader.

   1.0 _____: Have you asked someone close to you to assess where you stand related to the Knowledge, Skills, and Attributes you’ve identified as important to you?  Asking your supervisor, husband/wife, etc., is a great place to start.

   1.0 _____: Do you have a plan to practice being a better leader?  Practice makes perfect, and not practicing leads to atrophy.

    

   _____: Assessment Grade

   4 = A · 3 = B · 2 = C · 1 or 0 = D

   Wherever you land, this is your starting point, not your ceiling. 

   “Leadership is not a title…it is a choice we make every day.”  Stay Ready, My Friends.

RuReady Resources:

1. Universal Leadership, Knowledge, Skills, and Attributes (KSA), Annual Focus Calendar. These are downloadable, printable pages that you can place in your planner.  The intent is to use these sheets as a weekly or monthly prompt to help a person focus and reflect on leadership elements. 

Leadership Books, Podcasts, and Documentaries: Leadership is a lifelong learning process.  There are thousands of excellent books, podcasts, documentaries, and interviews covering every leadership style imaginable.  Rather than focusing on finding the “best” one, focus on finding resources that challenge your thinking, expand your perspective, and encourage personal growth.  The format matters less than your willingness to keep learning.