This is a free article for you and your colleagues.  Please feel free to share this with whoever you feel needs to see it!  You have my permission to use the material below as you see fit as long as you use it in its entirety, including my personal information at the bottom of the page.

THE LEADERSHIP COMPETENCY TRAP

Todd Dewett, Ph.D.

For the last few decades organizations have been dangerously in love with “leadership competencies.”  The explanation is understandable, though the consequences have been ugly.  The explanation is that organizations need a reliable way to evaluate and develop their employees.  Thus, they began paying attention to the qualities and characteristics of their better performers.  Many times they will hire consulting firms to collect data over time in an effort to obtain statistically valid results.  The outcome is a set of leadership competencies (e.g., shows initiative, effective communicator, command of relevant technical skills) used as the backbone of the evaluation process, the talent development process, and sometimes the hiring process.

Only one problem – this approach is fundamentally flawed for at least four reasons.  For the sake of our discussion, I will focus only on the evaluation process.

First, there is a presumption that a high performer should be highly rated on all competencies in the model.  This is wrong and it is ironic since none of the high performers upon which the model was built were high on each of the competencies.  Most high performers will be very strong on about half of the competencies, and merely human on the rest.  Thus high performer A is spectacular on competency 1 and 2 while high performer B is awesome on competency 3 and 4.  However, what we end up with is a model with competencies 1, 2, 3, and 4 – and then we use it to rate mere mortals (the quality “B” players who dominate most organizations).  Thus we’re measuring them against a model that nobody ever lived up to completely – nice.

Second, we don’t use the ratings correctly.  Typically, supervisors look at the competencies, rate a person, then move on.  The process wraps up by talking about how deficiencies might be addressed.  The most important question was never asked:  “How can we better leverage the things you are really good at – your strengths.”  What a shame, because time spent trying to fix what people don’t naturally excel at is time wasted that should have been spent maximizing the value of a person’s natural strengths for the organization.  I’m not naïve, yes, some shortcomings do need attention, but as a general rule we are not supposed to harp on the lower ranked competencies nearly as much as improve our use of the strong ones.  Recall that the original superstars upon whom the model was built were not strong on all fronts, only about half – and they leveraged those competencies to the hilt.

Third, cementing the model into a large process with supporting software becomes unbearable “overhead.”  Once the overhead is cemented in place, there is no significant ongoing effort to allow the model to breathe and evolve.  Too bad, since your talent pool, your competitors and the markets you serve definitely continue evolving.  What works for you today, might work tomorrow, but not likely next year.  Systems must have built in rejuvenation abilities or your initial successes will become unproductive anchors around your neck within a couple of years.

Having sit-down evaluation sessions once or twice each year is a joke no matter how good your model might be.  Yet this approach is taken by the vast majority of organizations.  It is shocking to me, but it’s true – the “infrequent” and “formal” approach dominates the landscape.  This is not optimal for the following reasons:  the time gap between instances of performance and feedback concerning each instance, the overtly negative evaluative context surrounding the sessions, the large amount of time expended by all parties to prepare for the session, etc.  The massive expenditure of time and money can and should be replaced by more “frequent” and “informal” performance conversations.  Make it a normal part of positive discourse in the organization, not a feared and dreaded rare event.