This review aims to provide a broad overview of contemporary leadership science informed by the Queensland public sector. It was hermeneutic in approach, cycling back and forth between the local context and leadership science, to home in on guidance that both reflects the evidence and will work for Queensland.

This document is neither meant to formulate precise leadership guidance nor a detailed set of recommendations for the Queensland public sector. This report is intended to be a summary of the available evidence on the themes that matter, which can be used for the service to build and create a vision of leadership for the future.

Available science and practical knowledge is consolidated across seven themes.

1. What is leadership and what does it look like in practice?
2. Evidence supporting the proposed leadership architecture.
3. Leader development – what to aim and train for?
4. How to measure performance within the proposed architecture?
5. What challenges and obstacles are likely to impact implementing these models?
6. Diversity and inclusion.
7. Learning from others.

The complex nature of leadership, both across science and practice, suggests that a single leadership framework may be confining and constraining. Thus, this report recommends an overall architecture of leadership with more targeted leadership frameworks and guidance sitting underneath