Leadership Competencies – Less is More

​A constant challenge identified by our global HR network is how to obtain real buy-in from leaders and associates alike across the 10-15 leadership competencies that often form the backbone of successful leaders within their respective organisations. It wasn’t that they didn’t agree with the competencies, but as with many tool-sets created to facilitate the growth of their businesses, there is a constant struggle around managing the complexities of roles in conjunction with having meaningful conversations with their teams on performance and development.

Less Is More

The consensus from many of our key HR contacts on how to address this issue is to prioritise and focus, so that they can get real traction. An example given to the managers was to take a good look at those 10-15 competencies, understand them all and have a broad conversation around them with their team members. At the same time, the managers need to be very clear to their team about the 3 or 4 that are most important to them (and the team), and focus energy on measuring and developing carefully around these particular competencies. The result – a much stronger conversation that allows greater impact through depth, rather than shallow breadth. It also helped the managers communicate their values to the team members, and we all understand the importance of clarity in communication between leader and associate.

The Impact Of This Targeted Approach

Great buy-in from leaders and associates. It was much simpler to focus discussions around a few core competencies that were important to them, rather than the ‘deer in the headlights’ look from having to work their way through all 15. Of course the impact is anecdotal, as it’s hard to say in a quantifiable manner that this approach showed an impact on development speed or real assessment of a competency, but observations from applying this strategy found greater energy levels and approach to the exercise, which is always encouraging.

The Future

As associates move within the organisation they will work with different leaders who have different focuses and priorities. As they grow overtime, they build strength across the full set of competencies. When they start getting to levels that are visible to global EVPs, the few remaining weaker competencies will be identified, and focus will be given to strengthen them in preparation for a bigger role. But by allowing a more ‘natural’ use of the tool in the early years, based on the individual leader’s skill sets and preferences, you are signalling an intention to tailor tools for the leader’s use and their benefit. This will provide the same end result, but it will be achieved with greater traction.