Intentional development of Leadership Competencies is one of the primary activities of leaders – and one that can easily be de-prioritized in high stakes environments.
With the support of another leader or a coach, this can become a path to taking your leadership practice to the next level.
Korn Ferry offers a powerful research-based framework for understanding the most important competencies of effective leaders and prioritizing your own development or that of your team.
- There are many ways to use this framework, for example starting with a 360 review, a self-assessment, or a conversation between manager and direct report. One could identify areas to develop more skill. One could identify where strengths are being overused, often to compensate for weaknesses in other areas.
- Having chosen a competency (or 3-4) to focus on, determine whether you want to prioritize developing it. There are many tips and ideas for development practices built into the framework for each competency. Alternately, you may prefer to “work around the need to neutralize the weakness” – making conscious choices to cover for a lack of skill. That’s not cheating!
- I appreciate that this framework is compatible with a strengths-based approach, where we acknowledge that no one can be good at everything, and instead we can learn to leverage our strengths and engage strategically when it comes to areas of less strength.
Two lists to offer a sense of the framework.
The 38 competencies
Organized into 4 Factors (Thought, Results, People, Self) and 12 Clusters of related competencies
(from: FYI: For Your Improvement)
Further description of each competency
Additional Resources
- To dive in further, I strongly recommend the book FYI: For Your Improvement
- Great online resource here: FYI Resources