New Leadership Competencies

Leading Your Way Up

Leadership is evolving as business in India is cutting across boundaries, some of the leadership competencies that helped mangers to be successful are fast fading away giving into new competencies. Though these are still the prevailing expectations of managers, these competencies are becoming inadequate or in some cases irrelevant. 1. Forcefulness. Controling workforce and ensuring people do what they may be otherwise  inclined to ignore. 2. Motivate. The ability to inspire your people to do great work, the stock in trade was the carrot and stick approach. 3. Decisiveness. The ability to make quick decisions in absence of information. 4. Willfulness. Getting what they wanted and always ensuring that they are in pursuit of the same. 5. Assertiveness.  The ability of the leader to be outspoken and be in control of events happening around them. 6. Result- and bottom-line-oriented. Manager were always held accountable for setting standards, and achieving measurable goals. Profit maximization and cost minimization was the single minded goal. 7. Task-oriented. Ensures that everyone is kept busy and occupied. 8. Integrity and diplomacy. Leader led with tact and amiability. They were honest and respectful without letting things go out of their hands.

You get the idea. We have all worked in such environments and know managers who excel in this set of behaviors. But the fact is these leadership competencies are fast giving way in to new set of competencies that enable organizations to be successful. In an age where organizations are seen as a system - system consists of the dynamic interaction of various forces and factors that result in some complex situation. If you wish to understand your current situation—whether it is what you want or don’t want—you need to understand your system, the following set of competencies would gain more significance.

The New Leadership Competencies

1. The ability to think in terms of systems and knowing how to lead systems.

2. The ability to understand the variability of work in planning and problem solving.

3. Understanding how we learn, develop, and improve, and leading true learning and improvement.

4. Understanding people and why they behave as they do.

5. Understanding the interdependence and interaction between systems, variation, learning, and human behavior. Knowing how each affects the others.

6. Giving vision, meaning, direction, and focus to the organization