CHAPTER 4

Universal Competencies: The Big Six (Plus One)

In this chapter, we will expand on our previous reference to a set of competencies shared across a wide range of roles and organizations. Research shows that six competencies consistently rise to the top of any competency model.¹ These six competencies can truly help differentiate high performers and can also provide a foundation for understanding universal job requirements. Using these competencies as a framework to judge and develop talent can be a powerful tool in ensuring that the best employees populate your organization. We will thoroughly explore each of these competencies and offer ideas for identifying and developing them. We will close with a reference to a seventh competency entitled Functional and Technical expertise, which recognizes the additional importance of specific job content within the mix of required competence.

Along those lines it is important to note that these Big Six assume that an employee already possesses the necessary technical and industry expertise (e.g., a financial analyst has an MBA in finance). In point of fact, these hard technical skills are relatively easy to assess and validate; but it is the soft skills represented in the Big Six that can really differentiate exceptional performance, especially in leadership roles. In fact, it is an axiom among human resources professionals that we tend to hire for the hard skills but fire for the soft skills.

Here are the Big Six:

1.Relationship Building and Sensitivity (emotional intelligence)

2.Problem Solving and Decision Making (creative analysis and good judgment)

3.Influence (accumulation and skillful use of power)

4.Drive and Energy (passion to perform)

5.Organizing and Planning (being efficient and focusing energy and resources on the right thing)

6.Communications Cluster (clear, frequent information in the right medium)

Let us explore each one in detail.

Relationship Building – It Is All About Relationships!

At a professional conference in Chicago one of the featured speakers was the leadership guru Dr. Warren Bennis, who was a distinguished professor of business administration at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. The late Dr. Bennis, once considered the world’s leading expert on leadership, began his talk by noting that in his six decades of studying the topic, he could draw just two unassailable conclusions. The entire audience shifted to the edge of their seats, pens in hand, to record what he had to say:

“First, leadership makes a tremendous difference.”

Isn’t this obvious? Not necessarily, if you judge the process by which organizations often haphazardly select and develop leaders. Tom Peters, the noted speaker and coauthor of the classic In Search of Excellence, said it best: “A good leader doesn’t just marginally improve a team’s performance; a good leader can add an order of magnitude to a team’s results”. All too often, organizations—and leaders themselves—dramatically underestimate the impact that leadership, good or bad, makes.

“Second, leadership is about relationships.”

This also seems to be obvious but again requires insight. Too often, leadership is presented as an intellectual exercise, with managers told to analyze a situation and then react with a scripted set of behaviors. But effective leaders are able to connect with their followers on an emotional level that comes more from the heart than the head—their EQ, or emotional intelligence, as contrasted to their IQ.²

EQ is a harder concept to nail down than IQ. While there is no single number or measure that wraps it up neatly, exceptional leaders with a high level of emotional intelligence do have common attributes:³

•They understand that nurturing productive relationships is a primary driver for their success.

•They like interacting with people and are good at it.

•They devote appropriate time and energy to establishing and maintaining networks.

•They value and respect the concerns of others, and this compassion translates into behaviors that communicate empathy toward others, respect for the individual, and appreciation of diversity among team members.

•They initiate contacts readily and maintain them over time. They leverage these relationships to facilitate business transactions.

Can you improve your EQ? Our experience has shown that managers believe that acquiring skill and knowledge in Relationship Building and Sensitivity can be daunting (especially if you are naturally disposed against it)—and with a good reason. This is a competency that should definitely be on a list of required criteria when you select a team member, as it is so challenging to develop after the fact.

To ensure that a candidate qualifies for a role, look for trends in his or her history that indicate a preference for teams and community. If you are using the best practice technique of behavioral episode interviewing (i.e., asking candidates to describe specific situations in which they have been successful or unsuccessful with interpersonal relations), use the interview to explore situations in which they have been in conflict with others or had to deliver bad news. These critical incidents can reveal comfort and competence in difficult situations.

If you are trying to develop this competency in yourself, remember the saying mind-set before skill set. That is, your disposition and ingrained attitudes can be more important than skills that can be learned. You will need to reflect on your thoughts and feelings about others. For instance, what motivates you in interpersonal situations? If you tend to distrust people, then ask why? There are many reasons to value relationships and build genuine connections with others, including the need for a social network during stress or crisis, or the importance of being genuine in sensitive interpersonal situations. But you will have to find your own inspiration to drive your development.

There have been many studies about why people fail in organizations.⁴ Most of them identified broken trust and political incompetence as primary factors. Once again, this failure has to do with an inability to understand others and build solid, open, and genuine relationships.

Too often, organizations select frontline leaders based on technical expertise (and more and more frontline jobs require a working supervisor who has that knowledge), but then the management succession pool becomes seeded with technocrats who ascend to higher, and more powerful, leadership roles. Here, their lack of EQ is exposed and their careers go off track.

Problem Solving and Decision Making: Decisions, Decisions!

As an exercise in minimalism, the authors were once asked by a client to select, from a list of several dozens, the two most important leadership competencies for good management. The choice was easy: Influence, or your personal power to persuade, and Problem Solving and Decision Making, which can define you as a leader through your legacy of decisions.

Research and experience tell us that these two competencies are among those that have the biggest impact on an organization. Making good decisions and solving thorny problems involves knowing about and executing a systematic process. From the simple ready, aim, fire model (or ready, fire, aim practiced by many former executives), to more complicated models involving root cause analysis, creative thinking, risk analysis of options, and project management follow-through, all involve a certain defined progression. Understanding this implicit structure is fundamental to being an exceptional decision maker. The overall process of making good decisions requires proficiency in two potentially contradictory arenas: divergent thinking (thinking sideways) and convergent thinking (being decisive).⁵

Divergent or creative capability is required when initially confronting a decision. It is at this point that assumptions and paradigms (stereotypical or preset ways of thinking) can blind a decision maker to better options. For example, if the problem is excessive turnover in the call center, there may be a tendency to jump to the first solution that comes to mind (e.g., we need a better selection process).

However, a better starting point would be to hit the mental pause button and examine the root cause of the turnover. Research suggests that six factors influence retention: pay equity, benefits equity, good working conditions, quality supervision, opportunity to advance or grow, and the work itself.⁶ Exploring all of these possible contributing factors would probably lead to a better solution.

Once root cause analysis and a creative exploration of options are complete, it is time for convergent thinking—pulling the decision trigger. This involves some risk-taking. In a word, you must be decisive; then, you must be ready to sell and defend your decision as needed. Roger Von Oech, one of Silicon Valley’s most famous creativity consultants, characterizes the decision-making process in terms of four characters, or personalities, that you must be able to adopt. In the divergent phase, you must be an explorer and an artist, while in the convergent phase, you must be a judge and a warrior.⁷

When making decisions, personality also can come into play potentially helping or hindering the process. You may have a natural disposition to act quickly—and perhaps prematurely. Or, you may be very creative in generating information and options but hesitant to pull the trigger. The Myers–Briggs type indicator, a widely used personality assessment tool, can provide insight into your decision-making preferences.⁸ We recommend that all managers take the inventory early in their careers to get a better insight into their own preferences.

And what role does intuition play? When should you trust your gut? In his book Blink, Malcolm Gladwell notes that while intuition provides lightning-fast insight into a problem, it is most reliable after years of experience in a specific decision-making context.⁹ Vic Braden, the famous tennis pro, could nearly unerringly predict if a player would fault on a serve in the milliseconds after a ball was tossed in the air. But it was his years of playing and coaching in the world of pro tennis that guided his insight. Though intuition plays a part, be careful when extrapolating your intuitive insight from one context to a less familiar one.

So what does all this tell us about learning to be a better decision maker or selecting leaders who can fill those roles? The decision-making process can be broken down and understood, which means that it can also be learned. Also, because the Problem Solving and Decision Making competency is so important to a manager’s success, it should be part of any hiring or promotion decision. Asking candidates to describe their best or worst decisions, or using an in-basket exercise to test their problem solving ability during the interview, can help screen for this most important competency.

Influence: The Skillful Use of Power

As a manager, ask yourself honestly: Do your people do what you ask because they respect you, or because they respect the position you hold? This is not an academic question, mind you—employees will follow orders because the chain of command confers authority, and because they seek the rewards that come with compliance. But truly engaged employees—your best performers—are more productive when they are motivated to perform out of respect for you as a person and a leader.¹⁰

Your ability to influence, or your personal power to persuade, is one of two primary competencies that define successful leadership (the other is Problem Solving and Decision Making, which we discussed earlier). Influence is the focal competency for understanding how to persuade others and gain commitment. It identifies the special set of behaviors and motivations that leaders need to attract others to their agenda and to motivate them to act on their goals.

Situational Leadership

Experts tend to approach the Influence competency from two very different directions. The more widely adopted approach has been situational, in which leaders alternate between a more directive style to a more collaborative style depending on the circumstance. For example, an intern fresh from school would need more guidance and specific instructions at first—a directive style. As the beginner gains knowledge, skill, and confidence, the leader would shift to a more collaborative and participative approach. Ultimately the leader would be able to delegate responsibilities to a fully competent team member with broad guidance and minimal supervision.

In special circumstances, a more authoritarian style may be necessary, such as those involving a safety or integrity violation in which the consequences are severe. In such instances, leaders need to act swiftly and assertively to confront and correct the situation. Conversely, in special counseling circumstances during which dictating an outcome would be inappropriate, leaders need to be more participative. This approach may apply when offering career or life advice.

Sources of Power

The second approach to leadership, which we believe is more instructive in defining a true leader, identifies the sources of power that authorize leaders. These power sources can be presented on a continuum arranged from positional (granted by an organization) to personal (a portable form of authority granted by followers to an individual). Figure 4.1 illustrates this concept.¹¹ At one end are all the fixed positional power sources of role, reward (authority to pay, promote, and so on), and discipline (authority to punish) to the portable power sources of integrity (respect and reputation through being fair, honest, and open), expertise, and communications.

Figure 4.1 The power continuum

As anyone in an official supervisory position has been delegated authority to reward or punish their direct reports, the role itself grants an aura of power that allows the supervisor to direct others. These sources are fundamentally transactional in nature. For example, if an employee conforms to assigned duties and standards, the reward is keeping the job, receiving a bonus, or earning time off. Those who do not comply face discipline. While this performance contract might gain compliance, it does not ensure commitment.

True leadership is found at the other end of the power continuum. If you think of the best leaders you have encountered—those who produce exceptional results, and who are widely respected, generally likeable, and passionate about what they do—you’ve probably noticed that they operate out of a personal power base. They are honest, open, and fair experts who are excellent communicators of a legitimate agenda. They generate personal power from three sources: expertise, skillful communications, and integrity, and are often sought out for advice. You grant them power by permitting them to influence you because of who they are.

In daily life, we often encounter examples of ‘expert’ leadership, or people whom we acknowledge that they know more about a subject than we do. The power that comes from being a great communicator is a little more complex. Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech is a case of 12 minutes of elegant oratory that moved a nation. But being a great public speaker is not a prerequisite to being a powerful communicator. To be one, you must first perfect your message, or what you intend to communicate. And keep in mind that grooming, dress, gestures, and inflection matter. In his book Silent Messages, Albert Mehrabian, professor emeritus of psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles, estimates that about 70 percent of the impact of every message is nonverbal.¹² For leaders, the entire world is a stage, and they must perfect and carefully transmit their intended message.

Much of the Influence competency can be learned, but there is an important element that needs to be confirmed before promoting someone into a leadership role. We call this quality leadership identity, or having the natural inclination and motivation to assume responsibility over others. The famous Harvard researcher David McClelland noted that anyone who wants to lead requires a need for power motivation.¹³ Edgar Schein from MIT calls this characteristic general management competence.¹⁴ Because some candidates for leadership roles may be motivated just by ambition, or the dark side of power, organizations need to ensure that candidates will truly resonate in leadership roles before promoting them.

Drive and Energy: Driven to Succeed, but by What?

Next, we will tackle an extremely important competency: Drive and Energy. This competency is absolutely essential for any employee yet it is difficult—if not impossible—to acquire through training. In fact, this attribute is usually present inherently within the individual (or not). Drive and energy are manifested in the passion and stamina that extraordinary professionals demonstrate on a daily basis.

What Drives Your High Performers?

A person’s motivation is an extremely complex matter, and there are multiple theories on the topic. Abraham Maslow, the famous psychologist, theorized a human motivational need hierarchy composed of a series of satisfaction thresholds; each threshold is a necessary, but not sufficient, requirement for ascending to a more mature motivational state.¹⁵ The first threshold is existential (i.e., the basic needs for food, water, shelter, safety, and so on); the next is the tribal motivation to have satisfactory relationships. Only when those needs are met can one finally rise to pure growth and actualization motives (i.e., more mature human and leadership drives).

Frederick Herzberg’s theory isolated two factors correlated with motivation at work.¹⁶ The first—the hygiene, or external, factor—is actually more often associated with dissatisfaction. Elements included in this first factor are company policy, supervision, relationship with boss, work conditions, salary, and relationship with peers. The second factor, which he called the motivators, is correlated with true satisfaction. These motivational factors include achievement, recognition, the work itself, responsibility, advancement, and growth; these represent the sources of positive organizational energy.

Both of these theories suggest that the more mature motives of growth, challenge, achievement, and fulfilling relationships are part of an advanced leader’s drive. Yet David McClelland, a noted leadership researcher, added a need for power to the basic leadership motives of achievement and affiliation.¹⁷ He found that the best leaders have a natural resonance in positions of authority: They enjoy leading.

McClelland did, however, issue a caution about the dark side of power motivation. He warned against placing those who seem to be motivated for leadership roles, but are actually stuck at lower, less mature levels of a motivational hierarchy. Leaders who are overly concerned with salary and compensation equity, or the trappings of power positions (corner offices, special parking spots, titles, and so on) could eclipse the more productive drives of accomplishment and growth.

Hiring a True Leader

To help explore a candidate’s motives to be a leader, examine his or her track record, as reported on a resume or application. Then ask open-ended interview questions about historical accomplishments. A true leader will report pride in accomplishments done by others on the team, or pride in developing others for greater responsibility. Leadership is a vicarious thrill and is actually about getting work done through others, so be wary of a candidate who is overly invested in his or her technical expertise or personal accomplishments; this person may be less motivated to develop as a leader.

A substantial part of a leader’s energy is purely physical. The stamina and composure required to lead comes, in part, from a healthy lifestyle. Diet, exercise, and balance provide the vigor required to maintain the energy and positive outlook needed; creativity and energy are not associated with workaholics.¹⁸ Stephen Covey said it best in his book Seven Habits of Highly Successful People: Leaders must occasionally stop to sharpen the saw to stay effective.¹⁹ For a leader, this means having avocations, friendships, and diversions that provide recreation. In fact, our experience shows six factors that are essential to a balanced and energetic life for a leader:

Vocation: The choice of leadership as a true calling, a genuine desire to do good things through others.

Avocation: Hobbies and pursuits outside of work that are refreshing and recreational.

Relationships: Genuine friendships that provide emotional support.

Materiality: A degree of financial independence that provides security (compensation, insurance, and retirement).

Spirituality: A satisfying worldview that helps put work (and life) in a meaningful context.

Health: The diet, exercise, and rest necessary for the energy required to lead.

Dysfunctional leaders, or leaders who ultimately derail, often have big gaps in one or more of these areas. Professionals who have a mature motivational engine (a balanced life with a personal need to achieve and lead) can get inspiration through truly meaningful work. In an organizational context, this translates into a positive mission, vision, and values that provide identity and meaning.

Organizing and Planning: Get Organized!

This discussion started with competencies considered by some to be the softer side of leadership—building relationships, training personnel, exercising power, and finding the right personal motivation to lead. Now let us turn to an absolutely essential hard competency: Organizing and Planning.

Some authorities make a distinction between leading and managing—and rightfully so. They point out that leading is about people: building relationships, creating motivation, and being effective (doing the right things well). Managing, they say, is about tasks: namely, being efficient (doing things right).

The Organizing and Planning competency is at the heart of good managing. It involves the knowledge and skills to successfully handle the many competing priorities that confront a leader every day. In the past two decades, technology has drastically amplified the need for this competency. Today’s leaders are bombarded daily with boatloads of data, e-mails, text messages, and other electronic communications that can easily distract if not handled appropriately.

Time Management

Time is a leader’s most precious resource. Its allocation is always a zero sum game: You only get so many effective work hours in a day, and the time you give to one project, person, or idea necessarily subtracts from something else. At the center of the Organizing and Planning competency is a difficult question: What is the best use of my time right now?

The very best time managers have the helicopter quality—they are able to mentally hover above the fray and determine priorities through a continuous process of triaging tasks by urgency and importance.²⁰ They frequently use a structured process to label tasks and proactively manage priorities (see Table 4.1). The key is to spend as much time as possible in quadrant 2 (very important, not urgent). This allows for the best thinking and results while focusing on the mission-critical issues of the organization. These tasks can be the most difficult to confront, however, and many managers fall into the trap of procrastinating them until the pressure of a deadline forces them to act. Or they may spend too much time in quadrant 3, where it is easy to get caught up with solving easier challenges that are urgent but not all that important.

Table 4.1 Sorting priorities

So how do you determine the relative importance of tasks and issues? Test them in terms of how mission-critical they are. If they impact mission delivery (our fleet is old and in continuous need of repair) or compromise a key value (this is an unsafe situation for our employees), then it is important for leadership attention. That is why it is imperative that every leader fully comprehends organizational purpose and operating principles, as well as his or her job description as it supports the mission. Missions vary with organizations, but there are some benchmark values that most organizations share: quality, innovation, service, finance, and safety. Occasionally a value (such as safety) will actually trump the mission.

The very best leaders provide real-time guidance to their organization by paying attention to the highest-priority items on the organizational agenda. For good or bad, if the leader behaves like something is a priority, then followers too will! A leader cannot not communicate ... everything speaks.

The Importance of Delegating

The most important time–management tool in a leader’s tool kit is delegation. Lee Iacocca, the celebrated Chrysler CEO, famously said that his real leadership breakthrough came as a sales manager, when he realized that leadership was orchestrating the work of others (not doing it himself). When work came his way, he would always ask, ‘Is this the best use of my leadership time?’ and ‘Who else can do this?’ Imagine yourself as the orchestra conductor, where you must delegate the task assignments to the musicians. This is the ultimate goal of the strategic leader: orchestrating a team of experts.

By the way, you might be thinking right about now that the best time managers must be workaholics, putting in 16-hour days. But burnout, along with diminishing creativity and effective critical thinking, means it is your responsibility as a leader to take breaks for recreation and exercise. We have all felt that surge of energy and creativity that comes with getting away from work for even a day.

Learning Organizing and Planning skills is relatively easy—it is the discipline to follow through that often trips up leaders. Experience demonstrates that it is both a leader’s vision and enthusiasm coupled with a manager’s discipline, organization, and follow up that truly build sustainable organizations.

Hiring the Organized Leader

When looking for a good organizer and planner across a slate of candidates, explore their daily, weekly, and monthly schedules. Look for signs of organization, such as use of their calendar, follow-up lists, preparation, delegation as a habit, evidence of project planning, and so on.

An excellent test for predicting these skills is the in-basket exercise. In this simulation, candidates are faced with the overflowing in-basket of an absent predecessor. They must sort through multiple competing priorities and do so within time constraints. Later the exercise administrator can evaluate their triage logic and efficiency with organizing and planning tools.

While the leadership competencies such as Influence and Relationship Building might be seen as more compelling, Organizing and Planning skills provide the efficiency needed for a sustainable enterprise. Peter Drucker famously refers to seed corn—the essential component that must be set aside and reinvested if you hope to have a crop next year. It is the Organizing and Planning competency that provides the seed corn in successful organizations.

Communications Skills: A Leader Cannot Not Communicate

The final competency in our discussion, Communication, is a collection of skills generally defined by the medium you use to deliver your message. And while the grand eloquence of a superb leader’s speech, such as Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, is often used to define the epitome of communication competence, the actual definition of good leadership communication is much simpler.

In his classic book Leaders: Strategies for Taking Charge, Warren Bennis notes that in his study of 90 exceptional leaders, the true differentiator was not necessarily being good in a particular medium (i.e., public speaking, informal conversation, or writing) but in how the leader is able to frame the message.²¹ For example, Bennis notes that a less proficient leader might describe an acre of land in terms of square yards, or hectares, while a true leader would describe an acre as “about the size of a football field” (or pitch for you soccer fans). Leaders, then, look for ways to construct their message in a much more accessible way for all potential followers. They tell compelling stories and use parables and images to convey meaning.

Of course, being competent in a full range of media available for communicating a compelling story can amplify your effectiveness as a leader. Our research has isolated five distinct facets to effective leadership communication:²²

•Active Listening: Giving full, proactive attention when others speak. This includes being aware of the importance of all the nonverbal cues that are expected, plus paraphrasing, summarizing, and questioning to ensure full understanding.

•Communicativeness: The frequency, volume, and choice of medium that exceptional leaders choose for a message. For example, good leaders know that during times of dramatic change, it is almost impossible to over-communicate. They match the most effective medium to a message and make sure it is transmitted enough times for understanding and ownership. They also convey an eagerness to receive messages from others. They invite communication.

•Informal Communication: Conveying information in informal settings clearly and articulately. A leader’s communication reputation rests with the ability to connect with people in less formal situations. It is in these situations that messages are perfected and relationships are cemented.

•Presentation Skills: Being able to deliver an engaging formal speech to a large gathering. This skill lets you get a message to a multitude quickly.

•Written Communication: Writing clearly and concisely. While it is sometimes a neglected skill, good writing represents good thinking, and being able to craft a persuasive argument in written form can help frame a persuasive message delivered later in person.

Communicate Well, Communicate Often

Communication skills do truly distinguish exceptional leadership. Just being intelligent or having a good idea does not qualify you to lead and is not the same as attracting support for your agenda through the contagious enthusiasm generated in superior communication. To lead, you must communicate.

Being a good communicator also means being keenly aware that as a leader, you are the message. What is on your calendar, how you present yourself, your attention to detail and myriad other verbal and nonverbal messages are constantly being transmitted whether you intend or not.

It should be noted that direct followers are particularly fond of Active Listening in their leaders. An eloquent public speaker can still fall far short as a leader by being inaccessible, unapproachable, or just plain disinterested in his or her direct reports. Informed decisions implemented by committed followers demand involvement, and Active Listening ensures that involvement.

Most people rate Communication Skills as only moderately difficult to acquire. Even Presentation Skills, which in some polls appears as the most feared item by the general population, can be mastered with practice. Our experience has shown, however, that it is not poor communication skills that often derail good leaders, but rather their vanishing motivation to communicate. The hubris that comes with power will often diminish the perceived need to communicate, and the leader will become isolated and less effective. Good leadership requires constant dialogue, and those at the top of an organization must be particularly aware of the general fear of speaking truth to power. They must work hard to stay in touch and remain approachable.

Hiring a Good Communicator

Assessing Communication Skills in leadership candidates is fairly simple in the screening interview. The meeting format allows for evaluation of both informal and active listening competence; it is also easy in the panel interview format to require a brief (five-minute) presentation that will allow evaluation of this critical communication skill set. Samples of written work, prepared or spontaneous, are also relatively easily obtained; even e-mail exchanges with candidates can be revealing.

Evaluating a candidate’s Communicativeness competence does require asking specific behavioral episode questions about historical situations the candidate was involved in that required accelerated information sharing. For example, find out if a candidate has been in charge of a major organizational change and examine the response in terms of how he or she maintained the dialogue needed to successfully manage the transition.

The Big Plus-One: Technical and Functional Expertise

We began this chapter by noting that decades of leadership research has narrowed a much longer list to six competencies that predict effective leadership in a wide variety of settings (the 20 percent of competence that accounts for 80 percent of performance).

But unless you are the CEO of a very diverse conglomerate, there is also a seventh, more particular, competency that is necessary to be an effective leader: Technical and Functional Expertise. Having a specialized expertise not only generates personal power for a leader but also provides the content and professional and business context for a legitimate leadership agenda.

Here is an example of how our six competencies combine with expertise to produce exceptional leadership: Decades ago, Sam Walton had the dream “to give ordinary folks the chance to buy the same things as rich people.” Walton’s vision did not materialize in a vacuum—he was formally educated in business and decided early on to focus on a career in retail, specifically general merchandise. It was this knowledge of retail business that informed Walton’s vision and eventually led to the world’s largest discount retailer, Walmart.

If we were to rate Walton on our six essential competencies, he would do well on all: He was a driven, passionate leader who knew how to communicate to all levels in his organization. He was a famous organizer—and indeed Walmart is still one of the most efficient organizations on the planet. Walton built a network of vendors and partners that allowed him to rapidly expand his business. But his original dream buried inside of his special retail expertise and was then given life through his exceptional leadership. It is this seventh competency that creates the context for most leaders to form an agenda.

How to Establish an Agenda

Your first step in building a complete agenda is establishing the organizational mission. This statement of purpose is built around a core expertise. Take, for example, one medical device company’s mission: Improve the quality of patient care through the cost-effective monitoring of vital signs and fluid-delivery systems. This assumes expertise in health care, instrumentation, and manufacturing.

To further differentiate your organization, you should add a set of values to your mission. Research reveals that excellent organizations differentiate themselves through quality, innovation, and service.²³ They typically select one of these values to provide even greater identity and distinction. For example, if you are a manufacturer (as our medical instruments company), you must differentiate yourself through a quality product, but you could provide further separation through wonderful customer service or continuous innovation.

The third component of your strategic agenda is a compelling vision. This is a creative statement of a preferred future for the organization. When John F. Kennedy challenged NASA to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade, he was expressing his dream for an agency with the mission of space exploration—but with a compelling benchmark of success. In sum, a complete leadership agenda includes mission, values, and vision that must be framed in an industry context.

Defining Technical Competency

With more than 27,000 different position descriptions listed in the Dictionary of Occupational Titles, it is not possible to identify explicit developmental options for a generic Technical and Functional Expertise competency.²⁴ Every technical specialty requires different ability, knowledge, and skill, and each individual comes with a unique learning style.

That said, to learn a functional specialty, you must first make sure to choose an area of expertise and career that truly excites you, then recognize the limits to your abilities. (You may love to play basketball, but at 5 ft 7 in you may have to choose another vocation that interests you, and keep basketball as a hobby.) Next, you need to identify the specific knowledge and skills necessary to being successful. (And remember, you need not have been the star player on your basketball team to be a great coach—what is important is that you played with heart and passion, and that you have the context and credibility of the experience.)

To personally validate this exploration of the Big Six, imagine several of the very best leaders you have ever known (leaders who generate superior results and who are respected, likable, and passionate about what they do). Most likely you experienced them as inspirational, efficient, and effective.

To arrive at that point, they probably started with a specific area of expertise that motivated them and then, through native talent and learning, acquired competence in the Big Six. These competencies provide the necessary foundation for prospecting, recruiting, selecting, training, appraising, and promoting leaders.

The Big Six are a fundamental guide to selecting and developing the people who will contribute to your organization through the challenges of the decades to come.

Questions for Reflection

1.How do the Big Six competencies differ from Technical and Functional or Industry expertise?

2.What do Human Resources professionals mean when they say that organizations “hire for the hard skills but then fire for the soft skills?”

3.What level on the talent pipeline (i.e., individual contributor, supervisor, manager, and executive) might the Big Six be most important in terms of selection and development?

4.Discuss the Big Six in terms of leadership (focus on people and doing the right things) and management (focus on tasks and doing things right). Which Big Six competencies align with each?

5.Which of the Big Six should you definitely hire for (i.e., the competencies hardest to develop)? What techniques can you use to evaluate job candidates in those competency areas?

6.If you only had time to vet a supervisor candidate on two of the Big Six, which two would you choose and why?