Competencies for Effective Leadership

A Framework for Assessment, Education, and Research

Ralph A. Gigliotti

• Publisher: Emerald Publishing Limited
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781789732566
• eBook ISBN: 9781789732573
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Management
• Index: Business

What do leaders need to know? What must they do? During this moment of great change, complexity, and conflict facing formal and informal leaders across sectors, it has become increasingly important to understand the competencies associated with effective leadership, and to be able to apply the appropriate methods through which to develop, assess, analyze, and enact these competencies. 

Competencies for Effective Leadership: A Framework for Assessment, Education, and Research explores the many ways in which a competency framework can be used within an organizational setting as a model for assessment, education, and research. The Leadership Competency Scorecard, originally developed by Brent Ruben, Ph.D., Distinguished Professor of Communication and Executive Director of the Rutgers University Center for Organizational Leadership, is examined in-depth throughout this book. 

The expert contributors delve into the various ways in which this competency framework has been applied in the design and implementation of leadership development programs. They explore how it can be used as a self-assessment and improvement planning guide for individual coaching consultations, as well as a theoretical foundation for advancing leadership and organizational communication research. 

The Leadership Competency Scorecard continues to be extremely useful for the formal and informal leaders of today-and tomorrow. This interdisciplinary study of the model and its conceptual and applied applications are made relevant and accessible for leadership scholars, practitioners, and educators across sectors.

Chapter 1

An Introduction to Competencies and Competency-Based Leadership

Ralph A. Gigliotti

The Context of this Collection

This moment in time is a critical one for leaders of organizations across sectors. The volume of books, articles, TED talks, and industry white papers on the subject of leadership and leadership development is extensive – and growing. Much of this work centers around discussions of what are presumed to be the required capacities, capabilities, and competencies associated with successful leadership. Effective leadership skills are increasingly valued in the workplace, and proficiency in these skills remains listed among the curricular, co-curricular, and extracurricular goals of colleges and universities (Gigliotti, Ruben, & Goldthwaite, 2017; Seemiller, 2013). There is widespread agreement that leadership matters, especially given the complexity of today’s interconnected and globalized environment and the constantly increasing array of situations in which coordinated action is critical. That said, we continue to wrestle with epistemological questions about the phenomenon of leadership that require further attention. For example, do we know what we mean when we talk about leadership? Although there is a tendency to approach the subject with one’s own workplace, community, or sector in mind, it is important to ask which components of leadership are sector-unique and which cut across contexts? Finally, in what ways does “knowing” about leadership intersect with the “doing” of leadership? These questions will become increasingly important as leadership skills become more essential in the workplace, classroom, and community. Furthermore, as “leadership” becomes a general term for a broad range of behaviors and practices, the need persists for a systematic arrangement of the competencies associated with leadership. Such an arrangement must be comprehensive enough to embrace theory and practice, be applicable in multiple settings, and be able to differentiate generic “horizontal” leadership competencies from the “vertical” competencies that are context-specific (Ruben & Gigliotti, 2017; Ruben, De Lisi, & Gigliotti, 2017).

Leadership is essential for adequately addressing the challenges and opportunities contemporary organizations of all sizes and functions must navigate. Central to these challenges and opportunities are three issues that require attention from scholars and practitioners with an interest in leadership and leadership development: clarifying what we mean when we talk about leadership; defining capabilities that are essential to this definition; and designing methods for assessing and developing the knowledge and skills that flow from our understanding of what constitutes leadership.

Efforts to define what we should mean by leadership vary across disciplines and contexts. Within social psychology, leadership is understood to be a “process of influencing others in a manner that enhances their contribution to the realization of group goals” (Platow, Haslam, & Reicher, 2017, p. 339). These authors go on to note “how social influence emerges from psychological in-group members,” and how successful leadership hinges upon a “shared social identity” (p. 339). The traits and personality characteristics of the individual leader are often examined in psychological studies of leadership. Sociologists, on the other hand, “have undertaken research on leadership not by studying the personal characteristics of the leaders, but rather in terms of the relationship between the leaders and the led [and] the different paths to leadership positions” (Guillén, 2010, pp. 224, 225). For economists, such as Bolton, Brunnermeier, and Veldkamp (2010), the focus often centers on the “functional aspects of leadership, the mechanisms of leadership, and on what leadership can accomplish for an organization” (p. 241) – a perspective widely shared among many subdisciplines within business. Leadership in health care, according to Arroliga, Huber, Myers, Dieckert, and Wesson (2014), is undergoing a shift from being based on “conferred authority, defined as power to perform a service” to one that puts “the patient and the community at the center of the medical [or broader health] practice” (p. 247). Finally, within our discipline of communication, leadership is increasingly depicted as a communicative undertaking that is both process-oriented and meaning-centered (Barge & Fairhurst, 2008; Fairhurst & Connaughton, 2014; Gigliotti et al., 2017; Ruben & Gigliotti, 2016). Flowing from these definitions and perspectives are additional endeavors aimed at identifying the critical dimensions of leadership within a given scholarly discipline or applied sector. Finally, efforts to apply these insights in the creation of programs that foster and develop increased leadership capacities continue to grow, particularly in response to a rapidly shifting environment that demands effective leadership.

Higher education is one sector currently experiencing significant “disruption” and, according to some pundits, the sector as a whole is on the cusp of dramatic change (Gigliotti, forthcoming). The challenges colleges and universities must confront are widespread, including erosion of public trust (Fingerhut, 2017), growing scrutiny from a wide array of internal and external stakeholders (Cowen & Seifter, 2018; Ruben et al., 2017), a concerning and uncertain financial outlook (Calderon & Jones, 2017), and ongoing issues related to access, affordability, and adequate job preparation for students. Underlying these challenges lies the widely debated question of the core purpose of higher education as society continues to evolve.

These many challenges have the potential to blind us to the vast range of opportunities for institutions of higher education. For example, the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce has done extensive research on the connections between education, career qualifications, and the workforce. Their many reports and findings all point to the value of a college degree. In their study, “America’s Divided Recovery: College Haves and Have Nots,” Carnevale, Jayasundera, and Gulish (2016) found that more than 95% of jobs created during the post-recession recovery have been filled by college-educated workers, while those with a high school diploma or less are being left behind. For the first time, employees with a bachelor’s degree or higher comprise a larger share of the workforce (36%) than those with a high school diploma (34%). The future of higher education holds great promise, due in part to advancements in technology that have the potential to improve access to and quality of such an education, innovations in organizational quality and excellence, and the continued growth in the number of “nontraditional” students seeking a college credential (National Center for Education Statistics, 2018). Additionally, as public confidence wanes, colleges and universities are working to demonstrate their value by increasing their alignment with the workforce, helping students successfully transition from college to the workplace, and evolving to meet the economic demands of the twenty-first century (Gallup, 2018). Finally, for some, the challenges facing colleges and universities provide an opportunity for creative leadership and novel solutions that might not otherwise be possible.

In many ways, these challenges and opportunities are not wholly unique to higher education. They represent a critical juncture for organizations of all kinds where leaders are being held more accountable, stakeholders find themselves more empowered, and our collective understanding of the contemporary organization undergoes a transformation. We could consider the many ways in which leaders in health care, government, nonprofits, and business are navigating existential challenges while also taking advantage of present-day opportunities. Although we must exercise caution in treating this moment ahistorically (Spector, 2016), as if organizations have never faced such a dramatic array of existential challenges and promising opportunities, the need for effective leadership remains a critical topic for scholars and practitioners – and with this comes the need to more fully understand the competencies associated with leadership excellence.

The Need for Effective Leadership

As noted in the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) Leadership Handbook (2010), the section dealing with leadership competencies includes the following preamble: “As our world becomes more complex, the competencies required of today’s leaders likewise become more complex. It becomes more and more difficult to identify the most ‘important’ competencies, because they both multiply and become more complicated. Competencies grow in breadth as well as depth” (p. 13). The focus on developing leaders who are sensitive to the needs of their many stakeholders and to the culture(s) within which they work, agile in responding to an interdependent set of challenges and circumstances, and open to ongoing learning and continuous improvement remains an imperative for organizations, associations, and societies across the globe. At the same time, the complexity of this current historical moment, as supported by the quote above, intensifies the need for effective leaders, while also problematizing the role of the formal and informal leadership educator in adequately equipping and developing leaders with the needed competencies. For organizations of all kinds, leadership development remains an ongoing priority, and as noted by McCauley, Van Velsor, and Ruderman (2010), the training and development of leadership competencies includes, but extends beyond, individual leader development: “It encompasses the development of the connections among individuals, the development of the capacities of collectives, the development of the connections among collectives in an organization, and the development of the culture and systems in which individuals and collectives are embedded” (p. 26). From this perspective, leadership development does not occur in a vacuum, but rather must be purposefully tailored around and embedded within the culture of a specific setting.

In the context of higher education, leadership development was never a critical priority for colleges and universities; and in many ways, higher education prospered in the latter half of the twentieth century without having to be overly concerned about excellence in leadership or in leadership development (Lederman, 2017). As we acknowledged in our book, A Guide for Leaders in Higher Education: Core Concepts, Competencies, and Tools (Ruben et al., 2017), individuals with distinguished careers as thought leaders in their fields once possessed the requisite skills for advancing the work of the academy. As the landscape shifted, so too did the need for more effective leadership and more impactful leadership development opportunities. We are seeing an increase in the quantity and diversity of leadership development programs for current and aspiring leaders in higher education (Gigliotti, 2017; Gmelch & Buller, 2015; Gmelch, Hopkins, & Damico, 2011; Ruben et al., 2017), and this trend will likely continue given the aforementioned challenges facing colleges and universities and the needed advancements in leadership development taking place across sectors (Kellerman, 2012; Pfeffer, 2015).

Leaders today need a more expansive, cross-cutting set of competencies to maintain and advance their institutions – competencies that have long been valued in other sectors (Ruben, 2006; Ruben et al., 2017). We have studied this topic closely in our work in the Center for Organizational Leadership (OL) at Rutgers University. OL provides programs and consultation in the areas of organizational advancement and academic and administrative leadership development designed to help administrators, faculty, staff, and graduate and medical students throughout Rutgers University develop and enhance both their knowledge and skill in the areas of leadership and organizational communication. The Center was created in 1993 to serve as a national leader in the areas of organizational effectiveness and self-assessment, leadership development, and communication improvement. As such, OL serves as a resource not only for Rutgers University, but for the higher education community more generally. Building upon Ruben’s (2006, 2012) writing on the leadership competency framework, our approach to training and development highlights the various co...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Chapter 1 An Introduction to Competencies and Competency-Based Leadership
• Part One: An Introduction to the Leadership Competency Framework
• Part Two: Snapshot of Leadership Education Connections
• Part Three: Contributions of the Leadership Competency Framework to Leadership Research
• Appendix
• Index