This standard requires leaders to actively seek evidence before making significant decisions — and to make that practice visible. Authority without evidence produces poor decisions; evidence without authority produces no decisions. Evidence-based leadership combines both: the willingness to look at what is true and the courage to act on it.
It supports the policy "Enable Evidence-Based Leadership" by making evidence use a structured leadership expectation, not a personal preference.
| Category | Description |
|---|---|
| People & Culture | - Decisions driven by senior opinion and experience rather than data. - Evidence presented as supporting material, not decision input. |
| Process & Governance | - No structured expectation that evidence is presented with significant decisions. - Data available but not systematically used in leadership decisions. |
| Technology & Tools | - Reporting tools exist but are not used in decision forums. - Data accessible to analysts, not integrated into leadership practice. |
| Measurement & Metrics | - Decision quality not tracked or reviewed. - Evidence use in decisions not assessed. |
| Category | Description |
|---|---|
| People & Culture | - Some leaders request evidence before decisions but inconsistently. - Data used in planning but not as a live decision input. |
| Process & Governance | - Some decision templates include evidence sections. - Reviews occasionally interrogate the evidence behind recommendations. |
| Technology & Tools | - Dashboards and reporting tools in use in some leadership forums. - Data literacy present in some but not all leadership teams. |
| Measurement & Metrics | - Decision outcomes reviewed retrospectively in some areas. - Evidence quality not assessed proactively. |
| Category | Description |
|---|---|
| People & Culture | - Leaders routinely ask "what does the evidence show?" before significant decisions. - Evidence use modelled visibly in leadership forums. |
| Process & Governance | - Decision-making templates require evidence presentation. - Decisions documented with their evidence basis for future review. |
| Technology & Tools | - Live data dashboards integrated into leadership decision forums. - Data literacy investment targeted at leadership as well as analysts. |
| Measurement & Metrics | - Evidence quality assessed as part of decision governance. - Decision review cycles evaluate whether evidence basis was adequate. |
| Category | Description |
|---|---|
| People & Culture | - Evidence-based decision-making assessed in leadership development conversations. - Leaders coach others on distinguishing evidence from opinion in decision processes. |
| Process & Governance | - Evidence standards applied consistently across major strategic and investment decisions. - After-action reviews evaluate evidence quality as a learning input. |
| Technology & Tools | - Decision intelligence platforms provide leaders with contextual, timely evidence. - Data confidence indicators surface with all major data inputs. |
| Measurement & Metrics | - Decision quality tracked through outcome reviews. - Correlation between evidence quality and decision outcome visible over time. |
| Category | Description |
|---|---|
| People & Culture | - Evidence-based thinking is an unquestioned organisational norm at leadership level. - Leaders openly change their minds when evidence warrants it. |
| Process & Governance | - Evidence practices continuously refined based on decision quality outcomes. - Evidence standards evolve with available data quality and analytical capability. |
| Technology & Tools | - AI-assisted evidence synthesis surfaces the most relevant data for each decision context. - Decision support infrastructure continuously improved. |
| Measurement & Metrics | - Decision quality and evidence use tracked as organisational capability metrics. - Evidence-based culture measured as a standing indicator of leadership maturity. |