Today, there seems to be a clear movement in viewing leadership and leadership development not only in terms of leader attributes, skills and traits. Lately, competencies (or requirements) seem to be the center of focus.
In other organizations, leadership competencies have even become the core dimension of leadership development activities.
Competencies
Recently, a 2002 study found that leading-edge companies define leadership by a set of competencies. These are now used to guide leadership development at all levels.
By the same token, a majority of organizations have, on their own, identified and defined the characteristics and qualities of successful leaders.
The question now at hand is this: How then are competencies used in a most effective way in leadership development?
Strategies and business models
In the past, leadership development programs that were put into action had not been very successful in bringing profound changes. This brought a change in perspective among those who implemented them.
Organizations began to develop leaders and leadership competencies that matched and were specific to their particular business challenges and goals. Leadership competencies were then fitted to a best-practice organization’s particular strategy and its business model.
Individual application
Needless to say, this particular perspective had also been implemented and brought to the individual level. This is in answer to the argument that it is not likely for all leaders to possess the same set of competencies to make themselves or the organization a success.
The new perspective is this: Leaders should not be accountable for their particular set of behaviors. Rather, they are to be held responsible only for the desired outcomes.
Beyond competencies
This new perspective goes beyond competencies. The competencies have a tendency to focus on what needs to be fixed rather than attention on the whole person.
In addition, focus is also placed on people’s strengths and natural abilities, and not just on competencies that can sometimes border on the eccentric. Today, development is viewed as leveraging your strengths and minimizing the impact of weaknesses.
Health and leadership
Well-being and individual health at work are also brought out as issues of growing interest and attention, including their relevance to leadership. One question is the relentless stress of constant change and competition in the workplace.
Managing stress and personal styles in avoiding burn-outs are also becoming additional factors to integrate in leadership development. One known factor is that leadership effectiveness is correlated with better health and exercising.
Work and family
Another challenge for leadership development that veers away from standard competencies is the competing demands of career and personal/family life. It had also been recognized that a person’s work and personal life have mutual effects on each other.
At present, there is a need to understand which factors about organizational life are challenged by the concept of work/life integration. There is also a need to pinpoint organizational changes to make way for greater work/life integration.
Leadership effectiveness
So far, the effectiveness of individual leaders is enhanced when they manage multiple roles at home. In leadership development, it is imperative that we continue to learn not just more about organizational benefits but also the benefits a person brings to family and the community as well.
If you are in the line of leadership development, then you should constantly update yourself with the new trends and methods in order to get the best out of your participants.
These days, one of the effective strategies that many people use is incorporating self-motivation in the activities that is related to leadership development. They believe that a good leader is somebody who can motivate him or herself no matter what the situation.
Leadership development these days can be done in two settings: the individual setting and the collective setting. The former focuses on the individual traits of the leaders and targets that person’s strengths and weaknesses. The latter is mainly focused on using people that surrounds that leader to. This means that interpersonal and social skills are assessed to be able to help the leader develop his or her innate skills.
One leader at a time
Many people that conduct leadership development start with enhancing the skills of an individual rather than using the group. This is because it is the easiest way to assess the skills of the person to become a leader and would also give them an idea how much more he or she needs to improve.
Those who are into individual leadership development, the major thing that they should focus on is how to instill the value of self motivation in a leader. You must make that potential leader understand that if he or she knows how to self-motivate, it will be easier for them to accomplish greater things for themselves and for the people that matter to them in the future.
Experts agree that for one to be a great leader self-motivation is very essential. This is because knowing how to motivate oneself would help a person deal with challenges that would come along the way. It will also serve as an inspiration that would keep their spirit high no matter how trying the times are.
To help develop better leaders during leadership development, you must help them discover their purpose in life. Indeed, the most powerful thing that can help a person get started to be a better is when they discover their purpose in life. Once you were able to help them do this, they can find the reason in their hearts why do they want to be motivated and become a better leader.
During leadership development, encourage them to always be thirsty and hungry for something. For people to become better leaders they should be self motivated and want something not only for him or herself but also for others. It would be best if you can encourage that leader to use self-motivation to excel and achieve success and don’t be contented with what they have right now. Make them understand that it is best to always be hungry for knowledge so their desire to learn will be fueled.
If they are able to learn new things, there are greater chances for them to acquire new skills that would help them boost their self-confidence later on. These skills will not only make them better persons but will also prepare them to become better leaders.
Leadership Development