Leaders play a critical role in shaping the application and adoption of design in public sector organisations, yet the extent to which leaders need to understand design or be trained in design is unclear. As more and more governments use human-centred design approaches to tackle complex and gridlocked problems within the public sector, what kinds of design-inspired leadership behaviours are required? This short paper aims to answer that by exploring a ‘Public Sector Design Leadership’ framework as a working model to measure the desired design leadership behaviours and traits in four dimensions 1) Networked Governance Leadership; 2)Empathetic Leadership; 3) Creative Leadership; and 4) Adaptive Leadership.