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Leadership Competencies

Prof. Jay Satia


Leaders of today face increasingly complex situations. The pace of change in almost every sector has accelerated. The expectations of customers, employees and the society have increased and they have become more demanding. Increasing globalization and digitization have added to the complexity.


What then are the leadership competencies required? If one queries ‘Google’ Then a large list of references emerge, each claiming to identify needed leadership competencies. However, there are several difficulties. One, there is no consensus on which competencies are required. Two, there is some confusion between managerial and leadership competencies. As leaders also have to manage and managers have to lead, depending upon the situation and the task at hand, authors present a varying mix of leadership and managerial competencies. Finally. There may also be a lack of clarity about some ‘terms’ used. This is most noticeable in the case of ‘motivating’ and ‘inspiring’. The former is more managerial, results from expectations of a job well done and appeals more to head. On the other hand, ‘inspiring’ is more of a leadership competency, results from intrinsic commitment to the cause and appeals more to heart. It is often said that ‘managers motivate’ and ‘leaders inspire’.


Thus, a leader is left to assess how well he or she is able to perform the required tasks and which new competencies should be acquired or existing competencies should be strengthened to perform more effectively. Therefore, it is often said that leadership involves life-long learning.


Nevertheless, some common threads can be discerned from a scanning of the literature. These include communication, emotional intelligence, and leading innovation and change.


Communication


The most common and an agreed upon competency is for a leader to communicate effectively with the followers. This was evident during the experience of the Covid pandemic. Not only the leaders needed to communicate what actions are being taken based upon the best available evidence but also assuage fears of people and instil a sense of confidence that it will be overcome.


The communication would have to be clear and accurate. Leaders would have to become proficient in using new media as well as meeting and interpersonal dialogues.


Leaders communicate not only from what they say but also from their behaviour. They must ‘walk the talk’ so that they can serve not only as role models but also affirm their integrity.


The effectiveness of communication also depends upon the trust people have in their leaders. Thus, creating and maintaining such trust is a continuing task for the leaders so that their communication is effective.


Emotional intelligence


There is increasing discussion of the role of emotional intelligence in leadership effectiveness. Emotions play an important role in the daily life. People vary in their ability to handle emotions and it affects their ability to respond to different contexts. There are many definitions and measurement instruments of emotional intelligence. Researchers continue to investigate how it affects leadership effectiveness. However, for our purpose, we can include self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management in emotional intelligence. One should not only demonstrate awareness of other people’s needs but also be aware of the impact of his/her actions on others.


Leading innovation and change


Given the rapid pace of change, leaders would need to promote innovation and manage change. Most leaders agree that continuing innovation is critical to take their team, organization or society forward. However, there is no set formula to generate innovations. It has to become a part of organizational culture where every one’s ideas are encouraged and valued, and processes are in place to take more useful among them forward. Every innovation will involve change and change often generates resistance. So leaders have to convince others that change will be better than status quo. Then change has to be managed. There are winners and losers in any change process and leaders need to mitigate effect of change on the losers to the extent possible.


Conclusion


Clearly the above is not an exhaustive list. We have also not included managerial competencies such as thinking strategically, setting goals and expectations for everyone, and giving and receiving feedback as a leader would have acquired them in their leadership journey. In addition, we have also not discussed life skills such as digital literacy and problem solving as these have now become essential for survival and growth for everyone.

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