Leadership Readiness in Higher Education: A SILDM-Based Competency Diagnosis

This paper examines the self-perceived leadership readiness of first-year bachelor’s students enrolled in economics and business programmes, utilising the Korn Ferry Leadership Architect™ as a diagnostic tool within the broader conceptual framework of the Synced Integrated Leadership Development Model (SILDM). SILDM is a theoretically informed synthesis of established leadership and intercultural frameworks, designed to reflect the multifaceted nature of contemporary leadership. It integrates behavioural, ethical, relational, and cultural dimensions into a unified developmental perspective, addressing a key limitation in leadership education: the tendency to apply models in isolation without accounting for their interdependent dynamics. To operationalise this framework, a survey instrument based on 29 selected Korn Ferry competencies was administered to a sample of 1,307 first-year students, enabling structured self-assessment across four leadership domains: Thought, Results, People, and Self. The findings revealed higher levels of confidence in cognitive and task-oriented domains (Thought and Results), and notable developmental gaps in ethical self-regulation and interpersonal influence (Self and People). The paper proposes six pedagogically grounded interventions designed to foster more integrated, ethically grounded, and culturally responsive leadership development during the early stages of students’ academic and professional formation.