The Importance of Clarifying Leadership Competencies and Skills

• Are you a great communicator? 

• Do your employees trust you? 

• Are you able to inspire people to do more than they themselves thought they could? 

These are all behaviors of a leader - yet most interviews for senior leaders never screen for these qualities. 

In this issue of Succession Planning Tips we are going to focus on the critical differences between behavioral competencies and skills - because without understanding the difference, you cannot hire leaders who gel with your organization.

Why is it important to define the competencies and skills of a leader? 
Differentiating between competencies and skills is important because a lot of organizations are finding themselves having to hire senior leaders from outside their organizations. The current senior leaders have been on the job for decades and companies have not had the foresight to prepare younger generations to step into senior roles. If you are looking to fill senior leadership (aka C-suite roles) roles you need to know what you're looking for in terms of cultural fit with the organization and its values - and 99% of that fit has nothing to do with what the potential new leader knows but rather with how they behave. 

What’s the difference between competency and skills? 
A competency encompasses various skills; skills that put a finer point on defining a leader. 

For instance, one of the competencies you might want your senior leaders to possess is “excellent communication skills.” Who among us has not seen that on a job posting, right? But what does that look like in terms of actual behavior? Is “excellent communicator” one thing or many things? It might mean:

• “In this organization, we speak respectfully to one another.” 

• “We welcome feedback and we act on it.” 

• “It's okay to speak truth to power in this organization.”

Here's a different way of looking at it: Say you have a child who needs a bit of behavior modification.  Saying, “You need to be a good boy,” isn't very specific is it? But breaking down what “good boy” means in terms of skills or behaviors is something you can identify, he or she can comprehend, and you can recognize and reward in practice.

Back to the world of work:
A good rule of thumb is to identify 6-8 competencies and beneath them, 5 to 6 skills/behaviors that further define what that competency looks like in practice. So you might have potential competencies such as:

• critical thinker

•  excellent communicator

•  thinks strategically

•  works collaboratively

•  team-first attitude

•  ethical

Then you’ll need to define the skills/behaviors that demonstrate those competencies - as the “excellent communicator” example does, above. 

When you are interviewing for senior leadership roles your questions should be more about how the person fits within your definition of your company’s critical competencies and not about what they’ve accomplished in their previous roles (we can presume that if they made it to a senior executive interview they have conquered the requisite performance). Rather, ask clarifying and probing questions to determine if someone will be a fit with your organization and continue to promote the values and goals your company and your people work toward. 

Get help crafting questions that get at behaviors and fit. 

Defining competencies and the skills that make up those competencies puts a finer point on what you expect of a senior leader in your organization - both those who are already with you and those you are inviting to join the organization. 

This article was originally published on LinkedIn