The Design of a Leadership Competency Model
     Translating Strategy into Capability to Deliver
                     Traditional  leadership  competency  models  are                         The Importance of Alignment
                     notorious  for  providing  too  much  information, 
                     with  dozens  of  categories,  competencies,  levels  of                 tudy  after  study  has  found  that  strategic  talent 
                     competencies, and proficiencies described in a single                    management is more liely to have a positive impact 
                     model.                                                                   on business success when there is alignment. 
                     It is not uncommon for organizations to spend countless dollars          irst, the talent strategy must align to the business strategy. This 
                     and months—even years—developing competency models that                  means that an organization’s approach to talent must enable 
                     are intricate, time-consuming to read, difficult to understand,          the organization’s accomplishment of its business obectives. 
                     and nearly impossible to execute.
                     The problem with competency models is mainly derived from                econd, there must be alignment across all talent management 
                     their roots in academia. In this world of research, the value of a       practices.  hen talent management practices are integrated, 
                     model is largely predicated on how much variance it can explain          the different practices and processes reinforce each other, and 
                     to predict the future. s such, complex models are welcomed              they have a more powerful overall effect on how human capital 
                     with open arms in an effort to explain employee behaviour.               is positioned to support the business. 
                     In our experience, business leaders strongly dislie woring with        Third,  how  wor  is  accomplished  must  be  aligned,  both  to 
                     large and dense competency models. They find large models                achieve efficiency and to facilitate effective collaboration across 
                     difficult  to  comprehend  and  navigate.  Instead,  they  want  a       all levels of the organization. 
                     model that is easy to understand, lined to the challenges the           or many organizations, competencies have become the golden 
                     business is confronted with, and which is easy to adopt when it          thread that lins all talent management practices together and 
                     comes to selection and development.                                      aligns the talent strategy to the business strategy. 
                     “€eadership is always contextual, and competencies for success vary greatly by strategy.”
                    Competencies and its Contribution                                 Leadership Competency Framework
                    t the heart of any successful activity lies a competence.         leadership competency framewor is a collection 
                                                                                      of competencies, identified as necessary for success 
                    ƒompetencies are characteristics that individuals have and use    in leader roles given the context of a chosen strategy.
                    in appropriate, consistent ways to achieve desired performance. 
                    These  characteristics  include  nowledge,  sills,  personal    The framewor„
                    attributes, and ways of thining, feeling and acting.             •  ˆeflects the uni‡ue success profile for the business
                    ƒompetencies,  which  are  causally  related  to  superior        •  its at the core of effective talent management practice
                    performance in a ob, play a role in„
                    •  Improving organizational performance                           •  hould be aligned with the challenges of a chosen strategic 
                                                                                         path
                    •  Increasing the ability to deliver against a given strategy     •  hould articulate the values of the business
                    •  upporting culture change                                      •  hould be refreshed from time to time to confirm its 
                    •  †nhancing the effectiveness of learning and development           continued relevance.
                      interventions
                    •  Improving processes associated with recruitment and            The  framewor  communicates  what  the  organization  stands 
                      selection                                                       for, and what is expected of its leaders given the context of 
                                                                                      its strategy.  competency framewor should be lined to ey 
                    •  ƒlarifying role re‡uirements                                   business metrics such as„
                    •  €eader development                                             •  Šrofitability
                    •  uccession management                                          •  Increased revenue
                    •  Integrating talent management systems and processes.           •  ƒustomer satisfaction
                                                                                      •  †mployee engagement.
                 Tying Competency to Strategy
                 Tying competencies to organiza-       “nowing how your strategy plays out in challenges is imperative, because whatever is 
                 tional  strategy  is  a  matter  of   demanded should be modeled against. This notion is sometimes referred to as results-
                 nowing  what  challenges  the        based leadership since its focus is what competencies will drive the results the business 
                 business ‹and by implication its      is trying to achieve.
                 leadersŒ will face during the next    The process involves the following steps„
                 Ž – ’ years.                          •  n analysis of the business context, corporate situation and business strategy
                 These    challenges   determine       •   review of strategic priorities
                 the  competencies  that  must  be     •  n identification of ey business challenges
                 emphasized.
                                                       •   confirmation of organizational values and the desired leadership culture
                                                       •   distillation of the associated ey leadership challenges.
                                                        ith this foundational understanding, the design team is now able to translate successful 
                                                       strategy execution into behavioural terms ‹or competenciesŒ. This analysis provides the 
                                                       foundation for subse‡uent detail design.
                                                       ”efore embaring on detail design, a concept framewor invites input from the executive 
                                                       team,  senior  leaders  and  the  talent  management  team.  The  design  outcome  is  a 
                                                       competency framewor that supports strategy delivery.
                                                       “The leadership competencies needed to achieve breaout 
                                                       growth vary greatly depending on a company’s strategy.”