The Need for Competence
The need for competence has three components: superiority, competitiveness, and pride. It is important for you to be an expert in what you do, to win, and to be confident in your capabilities. More than anything, what distinguishes leaders driven by their need for competence is the desire to get it right—each and every time. They want to be experts in whatever jobs they tackle. These components can play out as extreme and overly ambitious, or moderate and appropriately ambitious.
When you take superiority to its extreme, you take satisfaction from feeling morally and intellectually better than others. It’s extremely important that others see you and you see yourself as first or right, rather than liked—even if it is counterproductive to organizational goals.
In its moderate form, you take satisfaction in your contribution to the achievement of organizational goals, and you modify your personal desire to be right. You focus—from an organizational and task perspective—on achieving business results, producing desired outcomes, and reaching team goals.
Competitiveness
When you take competitiveness to its extreme, you compete to the point that you are involved frequently in both individual rivalries and conflicts between departments or groups. You tend to categorize others as either on your side or wrong.
In its moderate form, you have your own strong opinions about people and ideas, but you work hard not to always see things as black or white. When you do, you work to let your initial reactions subside and to see the shades of gray—the good and bad in both yourself and others.
Pride
When you take pride to its extreme, you believe that the organization could not run as well as it does if you weren’t there. You are constantly conscious of your own agenda, which always involves making sure you look good to the people who matter. You value your own way of doing things over all others, believing you are uniquely qualified to know what is best.
In its moderate form, you have a strong sense of self-confidence and enjoy reaping the rewards of your efforts, but you work to make realistic claims of how good or important your own skills are to the job at hand. You recognize that your value to the organization will enhance your opportunities for individual advancement. You have confidence in your own convictions, but you also see others’ perspectives.
Let’s look at an example of how leaders with an extremely strong need for competence might let the elements of superiority, competitiveness, and pride affect their work.
Jim has been named to lead a project task force assigned to decrease the production cycle dramatically for his company’s flagship product. Early in team meetings, two clear choices emerge: Jim’s idea of a major investment in new technology and Craig’s idea of making slight changes to the current assembly line that will streamline the process. Jim might be tempted to react in the following ways:
• Identify Craig as a rival or the enemy—not just as a person with another point of view.
• Mobilize to win the fight.
• Process and present information that confirms why he is right, disregard Craig’s point of view, and hide information that supports it.
• Hold and express the belief that Craig’s approach is incomplete, weak, or morally objectionable.
• Feign a democratic approach to leading the team through the process but pursue a hidden agenda to achieve his own goal.
• Cite examples of his past successes as grounds for pursuing his current idea.
• Keep track of who sides with whom, and judge people accordingly.
Jim’s not being able to manage his extremely strong need for competence could result in the team’s not sharing information. It could create a division within the task force, lead people to believe that Jim is self-serving, and prevent the task force from reaching its goal.
Using Exercise 2, examine your own behavior to determine whether your need for competence may be causing you to be overly ambitious.
Exercise 2: The Need for Competence
Let’s look at three areas to determine your own need for competence: feedback, relationships, and self. Use this checklist to mark the categories that best apply to you.
Category |
Behavior |
Check |
Feedback |
Others often refer to me as a perfectionist. |
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Others often refer to me as overly competitive or driven to win. |
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Others refer to me as overly assertive and demanding in my requests. |
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Relationships |
I have been driven by a need to be right, and that drive has impacted my relationships with others. |
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I am or have been involved in highly competitive rivalries with other individuals or groups. |
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I prioritize being right over fostering developmental working relationships with colleagues and direct reports. |
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Self |
I have a great deal of pride in my work. |
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I have trouble listening to others’ opinions or integrating them into my personal viewpoint and decisions. |
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I sometimes place work demands ahead of my own needs and those of my family. |
Now think about the areas where you display the most negative ambitious traits. What are some steps you can take to improve in these areas? For instance, if you’re often receiving feedback that others perceive you as overly ambitious, think about your behaviors that could contribute to that perception and how to alter them.
How the Need for Competence Affects Your Work for the Organization
Overly ambitious managers may dismiss concerns about their own behavior, believing that moderating their behavior is a sign of weakness. However, keep in mind that your behavior influences the way that others perceive you. It can ultimately affect your ability to get things done for your organization, not to mention your career advancement.
Strategies for Managing Ambition Driven by Competence
If you believe you are powerfully motivated by the need to be right or to win, and you are concerned about being seen as overly ambitious, consider the following strategies for managing that need:
• If you are experiencing conflict, openly acknowledge the conflict and direct yourself and others through the process of finding the best solution.
• Seek first to understand alternative views by listening, ask follow-up questions, and make validating statements of other people’s comments.
• Seek to show respect for opposing views by incorporating as much as possible of those views in your own ideas.
• Don’t keep track of whose view is being adopted or who is winning, but instead judge outcomes based on how they advance organizational goals.
• Don’t worry about whether you are seen as right or winning; focus on understanding the fairness and value of the process.
• Clearly state and discuss your concerns about your own view and opposing views, and give each a fair shake in the process.
• Feature and highlight the positive contributions of others, as well as your own.