The Executive Director Leadership Model
Five competencies, fifteen subdomains and 45 behaviors you can watch happen. A leadership model written for the senior living Executive Director, built from leadership research, the daily job and more than 50,000 resident and family conversations.
Generic leadership models were not written for this job
An Executive Director can face a state survey, a census drop and a wave of call-outs in the same week. Most corporate competency models never mention survey readiness, a care conference or the Director of Nursing. This one does.
The model avoids personality labels such as transformational or authentic. It names only behaviors you can observe and train, so a leader knows what to do next.
The leader at the center
The model is drawn as a wheel: five equal segments around one Executive Director. Which segment needs the most attention depends on what the building needs that day.
Leads Self is the fifth segment and supports the other four.
Built from three sources of evidence
Leadership research
What decades of research show about leading teams: psychological safety, servant leadership, and the self-awareness research on why capable leaders fail.
The daily job
The role as it is regulated and run day to day: survey readiness, quality programs, staffing, budgets, and the partnership between the Executive Director and the Director of Nursing.
The resident voice
More than 50,000 resident and family conversations across 49 communities, telling us what residents feel when leadership works and when it fails.
Five competencies and fifteen subdomains
Each competency has three subdomains, and every one of them shows up in the wheel, the 360 and the coaching that follows.
Steers the Building
Runs a sound building and positions it for the future.
Strategic foresight · Operational discipline · Upward candor
Owns Regulatory and Clinical Quality
Owns survey readiness, care quality and resident safety.
Survey command · Quality ownership · Resident safety
Builds the Care Team
Builds a stable team that delivers reliably and grows.
Staffing stability · Shift reliability · Frontline coaching
Earns Resident and Family Trust
Earns the trust of residents and families, every day.
Dignity · Responsiveness · Reputation
Leads Self
Leads with self-awareness, composure and integrity.
Self-awareness · Composure · Integrity
Every behavior is something you can watch happen
The model contains 45 "This leader..." behaviors. Each is rated on a five-point scale with written descriptions of what each level looks like on the floor.
Because every level describes behavior, each score shows what a leader at the next level does differently.
One example, from Frontline Coaching
"Promoted by default and left to sink or swim. Promising caregivers see no path forward, so they leave."
"A pipeline that develops and advances its own successors. People stay because they see a future here."
Measure one leader against the model
Start with one Executive Director. We send you a sample 360 report, walk you through the model, and set up the first assessment when you are ready.