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Articol de Recenzat
Articol de Recenzat
Articol de Recenzat
Most progressive organizations today are using leadership the organization. Where is the empirical data that these
competency models to outline the key skills and behaviors are the key behaviors that have the greatest impact on
they want to see in their supervisors, managers, and employee engagement, attraction and retention, customer
executives. Leadership competency models can provide service levels, quality, innovation, safety, productivity,
a structured framework for defining and developing sales, and profits? How do we know we have the right
those behaviors that have the biggest impact on an competencies?
organization’s performance. Used effectively, they become
a roadmap to dramatically higher leadership effectiveness.
2. It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane,
There is a decades-long history of failed organization
It’s SuperLeader!
initiatives. Dozens of studies have shown that 50
- 70% of organization improvement initiatives like Many leadership competency models provide a series
customer service, leadership development, performance of behavioral descriptions clustered around 6 to 16 or
management systems, restructuring, quality improvement, more headings. If they’re relevant and well written, the
etc. have failed. The implementation of leadership descriptions are very helpful. What’s implied is that the
competency models is clearly heading toward that same pathway to peak performance is improvement across
cliff. dozens of skills and behaviors.
This pathway to perfection is overwhelming and
Six Reasons Many Leadership Competency completely unrealistic. At best, leadership development
Models Are Failing that’s a mile wide and an inch deep moves a leader from
good to a bit better. More often, motivation to develop
and follow a personal development plan to become
1. Out of Thin Air SuperLeader fizzles out and crashes.
We’ve been guilty of facilitating workshops with
management teams pulling competencies out of thin 3. One Size Fits All
air. In one case, we had 140 of the organization’s top
leaders in an offsite retreat go through a shifting process Most competency models weight all the competencies
to identify and vote on their top 10 competencies. The and dozens of underlying behaviors equally. Some models
descriptions of each one were then crafted by a small layer the competencies across organizational levels
group of leaders based on the blizzard of Post-It-Notes starting with frontline staff, and moving up to supervisors,
grouped around each of the competency clusters. Some managers, and executives.
organizations shuffle, sift, and prioritize card decks listing This SuperLeader model doesn’t
generic competency sets. account for vast variances in
Where is the empirical data that these individual preferences across leaders
As I outlined in “Leadership
Lesssons from Evidence-Based are the key behaviors that have the or their widely differing functions.
Medicine,” what’s missing is proof greatest impact? How do we know Each of us mere mortals is a unique
that these competencies matter to mixture of strengths and weaknesses.
we have the right competencies?
10 Pioneer Drive, Suite 105 | Kitchener, ON N2P 2A4 PHONE 519.748.1044 FAX 519.748.5813 www.clemmergroup.com
The CLEMMER Group
Stronger People. Stronger Organizations.
We have work areas that play to our passions and turn us balance. This unscientific - and sometimes deadly -
on and areas that are a real chore and turn us off. One- practice often left patients weaker and less able to fight
size-fits-all competency models don’t account for those off their illness.
differences.
If a leader’s raters know that the leader’s boss will be seeing
For example, a supervisor, manager, or executive in the assessment results they will change their ratings. And
accounting or IT will have a very different set of the entire process is transformed from development to
competencies and passions leading to their successful evaluation. Now the conversation between boss and
leadership than someone in sales or customer service. the rated leader generally moves toward performance
Competencies such as analytical and problem solving bloodletting. After a cursory acknowledgement of
or technical/professional expertise versus those of strengths - and under the misguided belief they are
communication or building relationships take on a holding the leader “accountable” - most bosses (often
different weight for each role. And each competency plays with poor coaching skills) will focus in on weaknesses
quite differently to the natural strengths and weaknesses and demand the leader address and improve these. It’s
of each leader and the personal preferences that motivated little wonder many performance appraisals are put off
him or her to choose their field or profession. and approached with as much enthusiasm as a medieval
doctor’s house call.
10 Pioneer Drive, Suite 105 | Kitchener, ON N2P 2A4 PHONE 519.748.1044 FAX 519.748.5813 www.clemmergroup.com 2
The CLEMMER Group
Stronger People. Stronger Organizations.
10 Pioneer Drive, Suite 105 | Kitchener, ON N2P 2A4 PHONE 519.748.1044 FAX 519.748.5813 www.clemmergroup.com 3
The CLEMMER Group
Stronger People. Stronger Organizations.
Leadership development that looks to magnify a smaller The one exception to focusing on strengths is if a 360
number of natural strengths that really make a difference assessment shows the leader has a Fatal Flaw. That’s a
is highly energizing. That’s why rates of personal growth, competency which is important to the leader’s job and he
leadership development, and improvement double! or she is performing so poorly that others can’t see past
the glare of this gap to his or her strengths. When that’s
the case, the leader needs to get to focus all improvement
energy here.
10 Pioneer Drive, Suite 105 | Kitchener, ON N2P 2A4 PHONE 519.748.1044 FAX 519.748.5813 www.clemmergroup.com 4
The CLEMMER Group
Stronger People. Stronger Organizations.
Further Reading:
• Free e-book (with short embedded video clips featuring Jack Zenger and Joe Folkman)
“Organizations Flourish with Strong Leaders”
• How to Be Exceptional: Drive Leadership Success by Magnifying Your Strengths
• Chapter Four, “The Competency Quest” of The Extraordinary Leader
• “Manifesto for a Leadership Development Revolution”
• Recommended White Papers in the Leadership Resource Center (freely available once
registered):
• “Extraordinary Leader 360 Survey: Validation and Reliability”
• “How Extraordinary Leaders Double Profits”
• “Leadership 6.0: Connecting Leadership Development with Drivers of Business Results”
• “The 11 Components of a Best-in-Class 360-Degree Assessment”
• “Make Performance Appraisals an Inspiring Event”
• Strengths-Based Leadership Development System
For over 20 years The CLEMMER Group has been making people better for organizations and organizations better for people by
using well-researched and proven approaches forged through deep experience with hundreds of organizations and thousands of leaders.
Highly customized services include assessments, training design and delivery (or training internal trainers), culture/skill development for
higher health and safety, defining/revitalizing vision and values, executive coaching, service/quality improvement, employee engagement,
career and succession planning, strategy development and execution.
The CLEMMER Group also provides customized leadership keynotes, workshops, and retreats drawn from Jim Clemmer’s seven
international bestselling books and The CLEMMER Group’s proven implementation frameworks. Topics include Leading Change,
Leadership Inspiration, Balancing Management Systems and People Leadership, Service/Quality Improvement, Strategic Planning,
Team Building, Employee Engagement, Building a Culture of Safety, Coaching Skills, Lean/Six Sigma Leadership, and Strengths-
Based Leadership.
ZENGER FOLKMAN
Elevating Leadership Strengths
Zenger Folkman is pioneering ground-breaking strengths-based leadership research, assessment, development, and sustainable implementation
systems. Zenger Folkman’s unique systems use evidence-driven approaches for developing extraordinary leaders and empirically showing their
performance impact on sales, profits, employee engagement, health and safety, turnover, and customer satisfaction. Founded on pioneering,
empirical research using strengths-based 360-degree assessments and other surveys, Zenger Folkman has built one of the world’s largest
collections of research data – hundreds of thousands of feedback surveys on tens of thousands of managers.
Jim Clemmer and Jack Zenger’s training and consulting firms first partnered when they led The Achieve Group and Zenger Miller. Their
“blue chip” Client list testifies to Zenger Folkman’s well-developed and highly proven system that produces extraordinary results.
If you are interested in discussing how your organization can boost effectiveness through extraordinary leadership, please contact us. We
welcome the opportunity to explore how your organization can develop good performers into great leaders with exceptional leadership and
coaching skills to maximize personal, team, and organizational results.