Do you know what competencies employees and executives truly expect from their leaders and which of them actually drive organizational performance?

IKL Report

Download the Leader Competency Index 2025 Report (IKL) and discover the skills modern leaders must develop to succeed.

Why the IKL Report Matters

The IKL Report provides:

Evidence-based HR insights – data that supports decision-making in a precise and practical way.
ROI measurement for development initiatives – ensuring better returns on investment.
Guidance for leadership growth – aligned with the needs of both teams and organizations.
Clarity for leaders – highlighting the most critical competencies to focus on (saving time and resources).
A proven framework – based on the Leading a Winning Team™ (LWT) competency model.
A practical toolkit – for HR departments, managers, and executives seeking to build high- performing employees, resilient teams, and future-ready organizations.

Download the report and start making data-driven leadership decisions.

What You Will Find Inside

The report answers key questions, including:

What do employees expect from their leaders?
What do supervisors expect from their managers?
How do expectations differ across generations X, Y, and Z?
Do expectations vary by work mode (remote, hybrid, or office-based)?
What exactly are competencies and competency domains, and which ones are worth investing in?

You will also gain access to:

Would you like your company to take part in the study?

What Employees Expect from Leaders

Employees’ expectations of leadership were measured through a rigorous research methodology developed in collaboration with AGH University of Science and Technology in Kraków.

The study is grounded in the Leading a Winning Team™ model and based on data from 1,178 respondents (1,072 employees and 106 senior leaders). After validation, the final sample size was 1,120 participants, covering diverse industries such as IT, automotive, technology, recruitment, and food & beverage.

The Leader Competency Index 2025 finally answers the critical question: Which competencies matter most for employees and organizations today?

Who Should Read This Report?

The IKL Report is designed for:

Executives and senior managers – seeking objective assessments of their leadership competencies and a clearer view of their teams’ needs.
Learning & Development professionals – designing effective programs backed by hard data and measurable outcomes.
Recruiters and headhunters – requiring precise benchmarks for identifying top leadership talent.
Business schools and training providers – aligning educational offerings with real market needs.
Entrepreneurs and startup founders – building organizations from scratch and developing leadership capabilities from day one.
Business consultants – advising clients on organizational transformation and leadership development.
Aspiring leaders – focusing their growth on competencies truly valued in modern organizations.

Particularly valuable for companies undergoing organizational change or operating in dynamic industries, where leadership skills directly impact adaptability and competitiveness.

Meet the Authors

dr Dariusz Szklarczyk

Sociologist and lead researcher of the Leader Competency Index. Lecturer and researcher at the Department of Society and Technology Studies, AGH University of Science and Technology in Kraków. CEO, project manager, analyst, and trainer at the Foundation for the Development of Social Research. Specialist in organizational sociology, innovation policies, research methods, and data analysis. Co- author of the Regional Innovation Strategy for the Małopolska Region 2030. Author of multiple publications related to leadership competencies, including “Employers’ Expectations vs. Employees of Tomorrow” (PARP, 2012).

Józef Kącki

Leadership practitioner with 20 years of experience managing PM, marketing, and professional services departments. Former Managing Director of a publicly listed NewConnect company. Founder of Leaders Island, dedicated to strengthening leadership skills through evidence-based development programs. Initiator of multiple R&D projects with Polish universities, providing practical recommendations for leaders. Curator of The LiGHT Summit conference and host of the “From the Leader’s Workshop” podcast. MBA lecturer, combining technical education with social science expertise. Privately: husband, father of four, marathon runner, triathlete, and sailor.

Science Bridge – Connecting Research with Leadership Practice

At Leaders Island, we believe effective leadership is not built on intuition, trends, or the opinions of individual experts, but on reliable evidence. That is why we created Science Bridge—a research and development hub designed to connect the world of academia with real-life leadership practice.

Science Bridge seeks to answer one fundamental question:
“How do we know that what we do in leadership and organizational development truly works?”

Through Science Bridge, we:

Conduct research projects with universities, institutes, and forward-thinking organizations.
Collect real-world data (surveys, interviews, measurements).
Analyze findings with academic rigor.
Deliver practical, ethical, and effective recommendations for leaders.