Competent Leadership

Competent Leadership

“A competency is an underlying characteristic of an individual that is causally related to criterion referenced effective and/or superior performance in a job or situation.”
(Source: Competence at Work by Spencer and Spencer)

So, what does all that mean?  In simple terms it means that people who perform work at a high level display a set of characteristics that explains their higher level of performance.  Originally developed in the 1990’s, it is based on a technique called Behavioral Event Interviews that are used with individuals who perform at a higher than average level for a particular kind of work to determine what they do differently.  These behaviors are then grouped together into sets of behaviors called Competencies.  These Competencies are different from general skills because they focus only those things that differentiate highly successful from average performance.  The work we are talking about in this post is leadership.

These behaviors can be observed by others and those observations then used to help individual leaders focus on the development of behaviors which will make them more successful.  These assessments are typically called Competency Based, 360 Degree Feedback assessments.  360 degrees refers to the set of respondents who take the survey which includes superiors, peers, and subordinates.  Peers can include vendors, customers, and others outside of the organization.

Some of these competency sets are specific to a particular organization or position while others include competencies that have been developed for positions across organizations and levels.  Typically, an organization will choose a vendor that already has a competency set developed across different organizations and then go through a process of tailoring that set of competencies to that organization.  The vendor can then execute 360 degree feedback surveys to determine how leaders in the organization can further develop their leadership skills.  If a person would like to participate in a leadership development program outside of a particular organization there are firms that use 360 feedback assessments developed across organizations.

Since no one is good at everything, there will typically be things that stand out for any one individual.  Towering Strengths are those competencies that an individual leader exhibits at a level much higher than average  It is generally thought that a leader with a few strengths far above average can perform better than someone who is slightly above average across the board.  Because of this, it is thought that it may be better to develop some existing strengths further than to develop all the competencies that are only average.  In addition, some behaviors and competencies are complementary to others.  If a leader has two or three clear strengths it may be best to choose a limited number of complementary competencies to develop rather than develop a competency that will not complement the existing strengths as well.  (Source: The Extraordinary Leader by Zenger and Folkman)

In addition to strengths, a leader may have weaknesses referred to as Fatal Flaws.  These are competencies whose nature and low level of expression will actually prevent the leader from succeeding, even with a significant number of strengths.  To develop a Fatal Flaw into a Towering Strength, however, is a fool’s game and usually not worth the effort.  If a leader can develop compensatory behaviors that will neutralize the weakness or develop that weakness to the point where it is no longer debilitating, then that leader can focus again on developing complementary strengths.

Although competency theory and the tools associate with it are powerful for leadership development, the competencies alone will not allow someone to excel at leadership.  Basic characteristics like cognitive ability, emotional maturity and social intelligence developed early in life have a significant impact on a person’s ability to lead.  In addition, certain leadership situations require a level of skill and knowledge beyond basic leadership competencies and individual characteristics.  Vince Lombardi might have been an excellent football coach in his time, but it is unlikely that he could have led the Manhattan Project to develop the atomic bomb.  It is just as unlikely that Oppenheimer could not have led the Green Bay Packers to win Superbowl I and II.  It is also difficult to imagine that, at the time of their success, a competency assessment would have allowed them to succeed in arenas where they were not already good leaders.

Here is an exclusive interview with Joe Folkman of Zenger Folkman about strengths based leadership development.

At Ethical Leaders in Action we believe that most, if not all people, can develop themselves to play leadership roles in many different spheres both large and small. The foundation of this development process is a short but powerful list of virtues which can be developed and improved through conscious effort. For more information feel free to take the Virtues of Ethical Leadership Self Inventory (VELSI) which breaks these virtues down into features that can be individually developed. The results of the VELSI come with a quick reference guide to help you understand how the virtues and their individual features fit together. https://ethinact.com/velsi/

See a list of other posts in this series at https://ethinact.com/blog-post-series/

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