LEADERSHIP AND COMPETENCIES

SHARED FROM:

http://blog.readytomanage.com/category/leadership-management

In What One Competency Area Should Leaders Be Developed or Trained?

May 11, 2012 by Dr. Jon Warner

What is Leadership?

May 3, 2012 by Dr. Jon Warner

Leadership Competencies and Diagnostics

February 1, 2012 by Anne Valenzuela-Smith

Leadership is a process in which people are guided by words and actions to follow a particular target or travel a certain road.  It is also the relative ability to persuade or influence other people to contribute to the achievement of a particular vision or goal.  Leaders are able to motivate people to achieve the vision or goal, or to persuade or encourage people to do something because they want to do it.  The extra dimension needed in the leadership mix might be:

• The “Great Man leadership theory”
• based on the belief that leaders are exceptional people, born with innate qualities, making them in some way destined to lead
• leadership is something that leaders have and others don’t
• a sort of charismatic quality
• confidence in oneself as a leader is an important feature of successful leaders
• ability to encourage other people to believe in you if you believe in yourself
• Trait-based leadership theories
• concentrate on leaders’ traits
• Behaviorist leadership theories
• concentrate on what leaders actually do
• different patterns of behavior are observed and categorized as ‘styles of leadership’
• Transactional leadership theory
• emphasizes the importance of the relationship between leader and followers
• focusing on the mutual benefits derived from a form of ‘contract’ through which the leader delivers such things as rewards or recognition in return for the commitment or loyalty of the followers
• Situational or contextual leadership theory
• sees leadership as specific to the situation in which it is being exercised
• proposes
• differences in required leadership styles at different levels in the same organization
• adapt or “flex” to meet the “readiness needs” of the followers
• Transformational leadership theory
• inspire others by their high standards,
• challenge people to achieve shared goals,
• encourage people to be innovative, and
• treat each person as an individual
• high moral or ethical standards that such leaders show
• Dispersed Leadership
• leadership may be spread amongst a whole team of people who have leadership of a task or a part of an overall goal or target to achieve

 

The competencies needed to develop leaders as specified by members from the Australian Human Resources Institute Group:

Most mentioned:

•  “Communication”
• “Coaching”

Mentioned three to four times:

•  “Innovation/Creativity”
• “Managing under-performance” (or performance correction as it was also called)
• “People motivation/Empowerment ability”

Mentioned at least twice:

• “Creating Vision”
• “Collaboration skills”
• “Developing others”
• “Holding Crucial conversations”
• “Reflection skills”
• “Taking risks”
• “Listening ability”
• “Resilience”
• “Ethical thinking ability”
• “The ability to deal with cognitive complexity”

Mentioned only once:

Advocacy skills	Optimism / happiness	Authenticity
Stimulating others intellectually	Service focus / awareness	Change management ability
Dealing with ambiguity	Managing by walking around	Strategic ability
Managerial courage	Results orientation	Self-awareness
Presentation skills	Delegation skills	Empathy ability

 

Why people think the competencies is needed:

Competencies	Why needed
communication skills	·         ability to communicate effectively to a variety of audiences is critical to engaging with people ·         Engaging with people through sharing and communicating information, ideas and concepts should assist in fostering innovation and creativity ·         their inability to hold ‘crucial conversations’ or undertake ‘crucial confrontations’ ·         outstanding presentation skills
Coaching skills	·         many managers who get promoted and take their work with them because they can’t effectively coach others to take over their old tasks ·         the ability to develop and grow their people and listening skills which all assist in showing great Leadership ·         encompasses effective communication, change management, performance enhancement, stimulating team members, effectively managing /developing subordinates performance, improving individual and team productivity /efficiency
cognitive complexity	·         the ability to cognitively deal with seemingly paradoxical thoughts or ideas
Self-Awareness	·         the ability to understand the impact you’re having on others will lead to empathy and understanding of other people’s points of view and inevitably develop great relationships
Organizational skill	·         step out of their comfort zone ·         take personal risks

 

The eight core competencies of leadership defined in the Leadership Effectiveness Profile (LEP):

• Emotional Intelligence
• Directional Clarity
• Change Orchestration
• Reciprocal Communication
• Contextual Thinking
• Creative Assimilation
• People Enablement
• Driving Persistence