General Chat

Hi Janet -

I developed something similar at my organization - Leader Core Competencies - however, I started at the "top-ish" (in our org, that's VPs and Directors who are one level down from a C-suite executive). Maybe this is the same as your "first level."

They were each asked: "What does great leadership look like (from your peers/from your leaders) at our organization?" From this, I mined seven core expectations/competencies from their own words, and in my own words, suggested 14 behaviors - two for each competency - that build towards competence. 

So, to directly answer your question: I used their own feedback as criteria. It works here because "the standard" came straight from them. In my organization, that matters a lot.

What are you thinking you might use as criteria? Good luck in this important work!

Hi Janet,

In order to address this question, I need to ask a question--what are the competencies used for?  Only for workforce development or for hiring, promotion and performance management?

@Jenna Kauppila thank you for your response. I like your approach getting them to define what they want to see. We have 12 core competencies identified for all of our team leaders. So for criteria I am thinking what are the "functional differences" for each level of leadership. For example, the competency is Building Working relationships it'd look liek this...
Level 1 it's team cohesion
Level 2 it's cross functional collaboration
Level 3 it's Strategic Partnerships

Margaret Gray recommended the Competency Framework guide which I am yet to digest but from a glance it answers some of my questions.

Thank you again for your insight.
Janet

@Preston Brown the competencies will be used for all of the above, but first step will be leadership development. The agency has never had an internal strategy for leadership development. People were sent to training to fix everything. Of course, there is some coaching and mentoring but it wasn't shaped within the strategy. So the 'core competencies' will be required by all leaders, where current, those being promoted into leadership or new hires. The core competencies will be incorporated within their performance management. The gaps we have identified so far will require for this too. Our 12 core competencies are listed here.

The behaviors for the first level team leaders were defined. Next we need to identify the behaviors required for the next two levels up of leadership.

Thanks again.
Janet