Leadership Competencies Modeling
Having the right people in an organization has always been crucial for business success.
Nowadays, companies are facing a particularly important 'people discontinuity' as the result of social and business trends.
We are dealing with a more varied and more demanding work force than ever before. One that taxes our ingenuity and challenges traditional ways of thinking, acting and managing.
More companies are finding human capabilities to be the critical constraint to meeting their growth and business development aspirations. The competition for managers able to grow and to develop the business in an increasingly complex and competitive business environment, is fierce.
Consequently, top management is focused on attracting, retaining and developing people with the same rigor and attention that they manage other core processes such as capital investment and product development. Their aim is to build the highly capable management team the organization needs to achieve its business objectives.
Companies believing that their distinctive people capability is a significant factor in their success align their people strategy and processes with business objectives.
These companies assess their future and current people capabilities with real insight, optimize hiring and development and apply performance management effectively (performance goals and evaluation are only effective if they lead directly to personally meaningful consequences and are substantially different for good and poor performers).
Assessment of potential and the implementation of effective development plans is perhaps one of the most difficult tasks an organization does.
Assessment and development of an individual's potential is about future leadership capabilities; results in a bottom line judgment about how close a person is to a given standard; describes what a person might be capable of doing in the future given the right development opportunities.
Assessment of potential is very different from performance evaluation. Results of performance evaluation are mere indicators of the potential 'at work'. Results of potential assessment are insights guiding the organization in decisions about succession planning, appointments, promotions, hiring, …
Probably the single most important determinant of the success of a business and its strategies is the quality of leadership and management (leadership is doing the right thing, management is doing the thing right).
Although many executives understand this fundamental truism of business life, the missing ingredient from too many business strategies is any serious commitment to build the leadership and management capabilities required to grow and develop the business.
Boards and top management of companies achieving superior, sustained performance, accept and act upon the basic economical fact that people is their primary resource. These companies believe that their deliberate building of leadership capabilities contributes to superior business results.
They share a few critical principles and practices:
- The board and top team set the 'capability' and performance standard
- The top team takes responsibility for and is personally involved in tracking specific individuals and groups
- There is an effective transparent assessment and development process in place
- Line management is heavily involved and is effective at gaining penetrating understanding of individuals' potential
- Leadership development is managed as a core business process
- The organizational culture is performance- and results-oriented.
So far, most companies cannot prove the causal link but the correlation between their sustained superior performance and effective people development management is quite compelling at the empirical level.
To be most effective, leadership development initiatives need to respond to the future requirements of the industry, the business and the individual managers and management teams. Furthermore, commitment and involvement of the top group and line management is an absolute condition for gaining company wide acceptance and co-operation to build high performance managers and management teams.