Over the last year, I have had the opportunity to create and roll-out a leadership framework across my organisation, aimed at supporting career development of our emerging leaders, accelerate their capabilities, and ensure a scalable approach to leadership that aligns with the company’s unique values and goals. Read on to find out more details about why we’ve created our own model, and what it comprises.
Leadership != Management
It’s worth noting that when I mention “leadership”, I don’t mean “management”. It’s common to conflate the terms but in this post, we are referring to this definition of leadership:
- Leadership = the ability of an individual to influence and guide members of an organization, society or team, often to act toward achieving a common objective.
That’s not the same as management, and it’s not the sole domain of those with formal line management responsibilities. While managers certainly benefit from strong leadership skills, leaders don’t have to be managers, and any leadership framework should be designed to guide both senior individual contributors (ICs) and managers towards the behaviours and capabilities that will serve you best as a leader in your context.
What our research told us
As part of the process I interviewed 20 leaders from across the company to understand their experiences of leadership development, both inside and outside, and here are the themes we discovered:
- While there is often excellent support, development and recognition from managers, experience can vary, and approach differs between managers.
- It’s unclear “what good looks like” and the key leadership capabilities you need to develop to progress into senior roles.
- Finding time for personal development and prioritizing L&D is a consistent challenge. Many people are self-motivated to develop, but lack the time to find their own path.
- Leaders experienced accelerated growth through participation in cross-functional initiatives and by working with role models from across the organisation.
- Hybrid-working creates challenges in maintaining connections and knowledge sharing amongst leaders.
While these are experiences for our company, I believe they are common across many organisations. Points 4 and 5 prompted us to create an accelerator programme for nominated leaders across the company, from all functions. Points 1, 2, and 3 pointed us towards us developing our own framework that provided clear guidance on the common senior leadership competencies and behaviours that leaders might aim to develop to boost their progress into more senior roles. I won’t share the final framework here, as it is the property of the organisation, but I will outline the key domains that the model defined…
The four key domains of leadership
Self
Self-leadership is about understanding and managing yourself in order to be an effective leader. This includes self-awareness, and self-management. Leaders should be encouraged to develop a deep understanding of their own leadership style and personality, manage stress effectively, and adapt appropriately in the face of ambiguity and change.
People
People leadership emphasizes the importance of building strong relationships and fostering a collaborative environment. This involves engaging and inspiring others, enhancing talent, and promoting open communication. Leaders should strive to create trusting relationships, adapt their influencing style to different stakeholders, and lead high-performing teams.
Results
Results leadership focuses on achieving organizational goals and delivering value. This includes focusing on customers (external and internal), leading change, and managing delivery to achieve targeted results. Leaders are advocates for exceptional customer service, plan and execute effectively, and maintain a results-oriented approach to their work.
Thought
Thought leadership is about driving innovation and strategic thinking within the organization. This involves making sound decisions based on sound logic and rationale, applying financial acumen, displaying a global perspective, and fostering innovation. Leaders should champion new ideas, understand the global marketplace, and create an environment that supports innovation and measured risk-taking.
Senior leadership competencies and behaviours
Those four domains are very broad, and we needed to provide more detailed guidance to meaningfully nurture personal growth and career development. So, in collaboration with a trusted leadership development consultant and Assessments International we designed a bespoke leadership model to inspire specific competencies and behaviours to support the organisation in their development towards senior leadership roles. Within each domain model, competencies are defined more fully, and backed up by a range of expected behaviours.
For example, Thought Leadership is broken down into:
- Make Sound Decisions
- Think Strategically
- Apply Financial Acumen
- Inovate
- Display Global Perspective
And each of those competencies breaks down further into a list of targeted behaviours that would reflect strength in that area. Given there are domains, competencies and behaviours, that leads to a lot of categories, and it can look complex! However, the model supports many different folks each with differing needs. For instance, some want a high-level description of what leadership is all about, and they can rely on the four key domains for that. Whereas others want to drill into a specific development area, say Financial Acumen, and explore the full detail of what that means and how they might improve.
What other support was provided?
When sharing the details of the model, we were keen to give people guidance on what to do next. So, we provided:
- A microsite with full details of the model, including competencies, behaviours, and rationale.
- An interactive personal development canvas, to help individuals explore the model, and plan where they’d like to improve.
- A crowd-sourced list of references, books, and courses that would support development in each area.
What’s been the result?
Well, it’s early days, but the model and the guidance has been well received. Many leaders appeared to be waiting for something like this, and have jumped on it quickly. The personal development canvas has been used regularly to create individual plans. The hope is that by the end of the year, folks will be able to reflect on areas where they have grown and be better placed to put themselves forward for more senior leadership opportunities in the future.
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