Leadership Competency Model: Appraising Capacity to Lead - Literature review Example

The Leadership Competency Model: Appraising Capacity to Lead Name: Institution: Table of Contents Introduction 3 Justification of the Choice of the CMU Model 3 A Model of the Dimensions of Leadership Competency 4 My Current Strengths and Weaknesses 4 Underlying Theories 5 The Leadership Development Plan 5 Feedback from a Sales Manager: Consumer Product Industry 6 Integration of the Feedback on the Plan 7 Self Management 8 Leading Others 8 Task Management 9 Innovation 10 Social Responsibility 11 Evaluation 12 Summary 12 References 13 The Leadership Competency Model: Appraising Capacity to Lead Introduction This report appreciates the conventional challenges that underlie the precision in defining leadership and detailing its functional elements. The report revolves around a competency leadership model (CMU Model) that helps assess and revitalize the ability to lead. The main goal of reporting on this leadership model is to critically synthesize the main elements at the core of effective leadership development. Justification of the Choice of the CMU Model The selection of the CMU competency model was cultivated primarily by the comprising features: valuable skills, talents, behaviors, and the experiential areas of the leader that encourage critical analysis and understanding that aid in advancing leadership development. The significance of the choice of the model reflects from the objective recognition that although effective leaders will not have to master every driver of competency, they will essentially need to be aware of them (Bohm and Mosavi 2010). Additionally, the leaders will be aided to know their weaknesses and focus more on establishing competencies for reinforcing their competencies. The model is particularly instrumental in cultivating the strengths in others that aid the leaders in selecting people with qualities that compensate their weak areas. The logic of selecting this model was bolstered by critical review of extant literature on leadership, and intensive reading on the practice of competency modeling largely inferable from available models. A Model of the Dimensions of Leadership Competency The core factors of leadership: harboring competent skills, having talents, right behavior and attitudes, and knowledge ( Mapp 2007) in core areas coalesce into a leadership structure defined by ability to self manage, lead others and management of tasks. In the manufacturing industry that I intend to leverage my leadership competency, the core challenges self management, ability to lead others and task management require robust development planning. Moreover, the leadership dimensions include innovativeness and the important component of social responsibility. My Current Strengths and Weaknesses Mapp (2007) lays down a detailed synthesis of a wholesome and effective leader, which was instrumental, a source for creating a sense of what to set as indicators of assessable competency: strengths and weaknesses in the context of leadership. In the knowledge economy, I am certain that my unparalleled innovativeness will be helpful in building good working rapports with young minds, and my ability accommodate diverse cultural backgrounds will be instrumental. A critical personal evaluation of myself as a potential leader pointed the following strengths and weaknesses: Weaknesses Interpretation of meaning of information for others Active listening Foreign language Organizational skills Strengths Active listening Visioning Service oriented Open mind Underlying Theories The discourse of leadership: the process through which an individual influences others to follow in his/her direction toward what, how and when to execute shared objectives has been widely researched and theories deduced through out the twentieth century. As provided by Bowerman and Wart (2011), in the early 1900s the theories of trait and behavioral approaches dominated research in this context. Personal traits and the leader characteristics were extensively described during the 1920s’ trait approach. Elements of management styles and the leader’s relationship with his followers characterized the behavioral concept. Other theoretical concepts that developed in the 1960s and 1980s include the situational and systemic approaches (Adler and Gundersen 2008). These approaches explored the relations of the leader and employees, and their overall relationships with the organization based on different situations. These theoretical approaches are apparent in the contemporary leadership realm, and they are critical in formulating assessable and effective leadership development practices. The Leadership Development Plan This plan is founded on the self leadership assessment and seeks to limit the weaknesses and embolden the strengths. This plan is buttressed by the theories of trait and behavior (Bowerman and Wart 2011) and situational and systemic approaches (Adler and Gundersen 2008) that revolve around the leader-employee and performance realms. The five core dimensions of the leadership (Velsor, McCauley and Ruderman 2010) forming this plan include: Self Management Leading Style Task Management Innovation Social Responsibility I intend to achieve the listed leadership development dimensions within my first six in employment. Time Frame of Leadership Development Plan Development Dimension Time Frame Self Management January Leading Style February Task Management March Innovation April Social Responsibility May Evaluation Jun-August Feedback from a Sales Manager: Consumer Product Industry The leader’s feedback was anchored on the recognition that the basic philosophy to develop into a competent leader is to reckon that success in management is underpinned by ability to make others achieve great things through shared goals. The leader in this context was critical on the actualization of the primary dimensions of competency, which he enlisted as below and briefly highlighted his intended message to me. Self Management: Continual self assessment on values, strengths, and weaknesses, which cultivate the opportunity of matching emotions and behaviors with proper management styles. Leading Style: ability to manage individual and group dynamics to bolster maximal productivity Task Management: Proper job allocation and rewarding to maintain highly motivated and satisfied human resource Innovation: remain analytical, creative, and able to take initiatives based on informed risk analysis Social Responsibility: Pledging honesty, care, justice, and integrity to the public Integration of the Feedback on the Plan Based on the professional feedback, it is imperative that leadership is a dynamic undertaking in which managers are expected to fulfill many things. However, the five dimensions enlisted in this context encapsulates the most important components that are required to structure, nurture, and remediate leadership disparities while providing room for absorbing changes. This premise extracts from the complexity of each dimension that bears inherent competencies that are assessable and improvable. As suggested by Noel and Dotlich (2008), the inclusion of the leadership competency dimensions in this plan seeks to underline the integration of both traditional and contemporary leadership elements that optimize talent development, capacity enhancement, leadership behaviors, and management knowledge development. The development fabric is synthesized through description of each competency dimension and integration of feedback input from a leadership mentor. Self Management This dimension encompasses the crucial aspect of leadership that compels self assessment to gauge own values, strengths, and weaknesses, which gives a progressive leader the opportunity of match emotions and behaviors with proper management styles. Within the self management perspective, progressive leaders pursues career development through continual learning habits, and open mindedness (Chowdhury 2003) through which consultations for knowledge improvement and remediation of limitations are activated and implemented. Additionally, competent leadership requires the ability to adapt to dynamic managerial situations, and the capacity to reign in job and out-of-work lives to maximize personal enjoyments. A feedback from a leading sales manager, and a mentor, intimated that consulting in less knowledgeable areas or challenging areas underpins success in stress management and performance improvement. This report has incorporated the feedback’s observation by emphasizing full exploration and implementation of the self management competencies. Seeking help where necessary, and from established leaders, and integrating experiential knowledge helps in adaptation to new leadership contexts (Rothstein and Burke 2010). These traits require discipline in time management, objective leadership, acquaintance with organizational culture, and diligence in discharging the work ethic. Leading Others The dimension of being able to lead others is complex yet pivotal in the contemporary leadership competency. This is because being in a leadership position demands the ability to optimize the potential in other employees especially by encouraging them to achieve organizational goals. This dimension addresses the ability to manage individual and group dynamics to bolster maximal productivity (Berke, Kossler and Wakefield 2008). Crucial features to bolster leadership in this context include being an active listener and tactical communicator for effective message delivery and understanding. These components persuade employees and help them built working trust that facilitates easy decision making. This plan delves the competencies of this dimension to encourage understanding and personalized ties that bolster empathy toward others’ emotions, which is essential for resolution of potential conflicts. Concerning this competency dimension, a feedback from a leadership mentor designated people management skills as pivotal instruments for a performing human resource. Leading other employees requires the manager to have full knowledge of each individual and group’s strengths and limitations, and deploy proper information communication systems. This feedback implied that lengthy management of employees under fear affects performance. Communication is an important competency inferred from the feedback that ensured effective messaging with communication workers. Additionally, active listening, open discussions, and encouragement of external communication are some of the leadership competencies that bolster the ability to manage employees. Task Management The function of task management is increasingly becoming pivotal in the management and maintenance of highly motivated and satisfied human resource. In particular, strategic leadership involves a new leadership style in which employees are assigned tasks that fall within there experiential and professional training. Additionally, the leaders must engage problem solving approaches that factor in time and resources management, and reduces potential challenges in the task execution (Wart 2011). Important to emphasize is that leaders must adapt to a working regime in which the culture of proper communication is nurtures such that result oriented approaches are integrated with feedback system that feeds all stakeholders with adequate information about performance. The feedback from the leadership mentor in this context intimated that communication is a pivotal instrument of getting employees to get the job done and thus achievement of task-specific results. Communication in this context ensures that all players have the relevant knowledge required to execute the job, and ensures delegation of duties and responsibilities. An important point to note about task management is the effective communication of instructions in a manner that the receiver and the messenger conceptualize them appropriately. An effective leader must be a critical thinker for purpose of analyzing existing data in order to anticipate different task execution scenarios through inductive and deductive approaches (Wart 2011). Innovation Innovativeness has emerged in the knowledge based economy as one of the fertile areas of cultivating sustainability for contemporary leadership. Leaders in this context are expected to remain analytical, creative, and able to take initiatives based on informed risk analysis. Innovation in leadership provides the basis for strategic planning, which puts the leadership ahead of the immediate organizational goals and work of the groups under them (Morse and Buss 2008). The feedback in this context cited innovativeness as the instrument that invokes ways and means of solving customer related problems, financial and information management challenges, and employee management streamlining. Innovativeness is bolstered through open discussions with relevant stakeholders, research and development initiatives, and strategic change management programs that allow integration of emerging ideologies and technology. This plan inferred competencies such as creativity of leaders as crucial contributor toward progressive management. Innovation revolves around generation of new ideas and creative problem solving concepts that cultivate the reorganization of ideologies to better remedial measures in varying contexts (Morse and Buss 2008). Social Responsibility Although business ethic traditionally supported the leadership’s care only for the owners of the capital, contemporary approaches have mainstreamed the interests of the neighborhood as pivotal drivers of excellence. This implies that leaders must pledge their honesty, care, justice, and integrity to the public (Idowu and Louche 2008). They must seek to better the business environment for the profiteering goals of the company, but show interest for the wellbeing and happiness of other stakeholders. A competent leader promotes a culture whose ethic fabric upholds high integrity for personal and public responsibility. The feedback summoned in this context provided that ethical leaders appreciates and conducts themselves in ways that match conventional moral disciplines. Socially responsible leaders create public awareness about the organization’s intentions and activities particularly through active communication. This competence creates a valuable environment that allows it help the community by considering its needs during decision making and activity planning and implementation (Idowu and Louche 2008). This competency promotes fair procedures through respectful deliberations that value a two-way communication concept between the organization and the external neighborhood. Evaluation The evaluation of the progress of the development plan will progressive and continual. There will be a weekly sheet of events that will be assessed for events attained of missed for remediation. There will be an arrangement with the line managers for them to evaluate and possibly grade the work of every month to evaluate the progress achieved in every competency dimension. After the six month period, the human resource manager will be requested to appraise the general leadership performance for the succeeding three months based on self and group assessed reports. Summary This report revolved around the leadership competency model, which capitalizes on the designing and assessing the ability to lead effectively. Effective leadership was deduced through the model as a function of five main competencies: task management, innovation, ability to lead others, self management, and corporate social responsibility. Personal traits and the leader characteristics were extensively described during the 1920s’ trait approach. Elements of management styles and the leader’s relationship with his followers characterized the behavioral concept. The leadership competency model is a viable concept of not only formulating leadership development plan but also assessing its progress and remediating limitations of excellence. References Adler, NJ and Gundersen, A 2008, International dimensions of organizational behavior, 5th edn, Cengage Learning, London, UK. Berke, D, Kosller, ME and Wakefield, M 2008, Developing leadership talent, John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken, NJ. Bohm, A and Mosavi, M 2010, The core leadership competencies, GRIN Verlag, Berlin, Germany. Bowerman, KD and Wart, M 2011, The business of leadership: an introduction, M.E. Sharpe, New York, NY. Chowdhury, S 2003, Organization twenty-first century, FT Press, New York, NY. Idowu, SO and Louche, C 2008, Theory and practice of corporate social responsibility, Springer, New York, NY. Mapp, WE 2007, Leadership competencies and their development for community college administrators, ProQuest, Ann Arbor, MI. Morse, RS and Buss, TF 2008, Innovations in public leadership development, M.E Sharpe, New York, NY. Noel, JL and Dotlich, DL (eds) 2008, The 2008 Pfeiffer annual: leadership development, 2nd edn, John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken, NJ. Rothstein, MG and Burke, RJ 2010, Self management and leadership development, Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham, UK. Velser, E, McCauley, CD and Ruderman, MN 2010, The center for creative leadership handbook of leadership development, 3rd edn, John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken, NJ. Wart, M 2011, Dynamics of leadership in public service: theory and practice, M.E Sharpe, New York. Read More