Here are the competencies required for today’s leaders:
“Nothing is as constant as change.” This quote by Ephesus remains highly relevant today. The world is changing rapidly: Increasing globalization, rapid technological advancements, and the challenge of competing against rivals pose significant challenges for companies. There’s a strong pressure for innovation. Simultaneously, companies must achieve high-quality standards and strong customer orientation. How can these demands be met? Companies attempt to address this by changing structures, introducing agile methods, or outsourcing. Additionally, there’s a high demand on organizational members—especially leaders. Flexibility, autonomy, openness to change, and willingness to learn are all gaining importance. Here, you’ll learn about the four essential competencies for today’s leaders.
These four competencies are necessary for successful leadership:
- Expertise:
Leaders need knowledge about their industry, regulations, standards, products, and processes within their company. They are experts in their field, even though they often work more as generalists and don’t need to be specialists in every single detail.
However, it’s likely clear to most that expertise alone is not sufficient for successful leadership. The best subject matter experts are not always the best leaders. Additional key competencies are necessary for this role.
2. Methodological Competence:
Leaders are responsible for coordinating, planning, and organizing, whether it’s organizing or moderating meetings, ensuring goal achievement, or coordinating projects. For this, they require methodological competence, including time management, the ability to delegate, and setting priorities.
Leaders must have a holistic view and guide employees in taking on tasks. Only then can the organization’s goals be achieved.
3. Social Skills:
A significant portion of their time is spent by leaders in meetings and conversations. One of the primary responsibilities of a leader lies in the realm of communication and interaction. Leaders must be capable of collaborating with diverse individuals, mastering conversation skills, and resolving conflicts.
To accomplish this, they need to develop an understanding of the motives, needs, and values of individual employees. For instance, if employee Marie is primarily motivated by having more time for family, she will likely appreciate two extra vacation days more than a career opportunity.
The personal level, both in the relationship between leader and employee, as well as the relationships within the team, plays a significant role in how successfully a team operates. Therefore, it is of great importance for leaders to possess and further develop social competence.
4. Personal Competence:
However, leaders must not only guide and lead their employees but also themselves. Due to the variety of tasks, such as leading employees, advancing their own projects, communicating with interfaces, and managing the requirements and expectations of their superiors, they must possess a high level of personal competence.
Leaders must be resilient, assertive, persistent, risk-taking, self-reflective, and open. They must be able to lead themselves, take care of their health, and manage pressure and stress effectively.
How can these competencies be developed?
It’s evident that leaders require a variety of competencies to be successful. These competencies can be developed through targeted training. It may be helpful to conduct an SWOT-Analyse initially to determine in which areas a leader still has development potential. Then, various methods can be employed.
As a trainer, coach, or HR professional, it’s essential to engage with these competencies and sharpen your portfolio so that you can train leaders in these competencies effectively.
persolog offers a variety of ready-made training concepts that focus on methodological, social, and personal competencies. You receive tools as a trainer, coach, or HR professional to support leaders in developing these competencies.
For example, with our Personal Resilience Model, you can help leaders build personal resources to successfully overcome crises and challenges. With our Self-Leadership Model, leaders are equipped to control their thinking, emotions, and actions and develop strategies to achieve their goals despite obstacles. Our Stress Model is excellent for sensitizing leaders to stress management and developing an understanding of what stresses them and how to deal with it.
Methodological competence can be promoted through our Time Management Model, enabling trainers to support leaders in improving their time management skills, setting priorities, and making good decisions.
While our most popular model, the persolog® Personality Factor Model, addresses personal competence, it also enhances social competence. With this model, leaders learn to better understand themselves and others. They can recognize behavior and resolve conflicts more effectively. Additionally, the EnergyFactors Model contributes to a better understanding by providing insights into values, needs, and motives.
What’s great about all our models is that leaders can analyze their individual situations using a questionnaire. The methods and strategies they learn can then be passed on to their employees.
As a trainer, coach, or HR professional, you can contribute to making leaders successful. Successful leaders are fundamental to employee satisfaction, achieving organizational goals and maintaining healthy companies.
Are you interested in contributing together? Then sign up now for one of our certifications.
Click here for persolog® certifications.
*Source: Concepts of Employee Leadership FÜPS 1/H (Dr. Magdalena Gatzka/Prof. Dr. Jörg Felfe)
