Author: Terri Schell
Leading in today's complex work environment is no walk in the park
Leaders are often told that to be effective and find success they'll need to learn and master an enormous amount of knowledge and number of skills. It's not uncommon for their organizations to identify and prioritize a large set of competencies deemed to be essential. Ideally, those competencies shape their talent management processes, such as hiring, training and performance evaluation. Understanding the competencies a client has chosen to emphasize is key to the work I do in designing and developing learning programs.
Recently I was doing research for a course I'm developing when I came across the term "meta-competency." I must admit, the word wasn't part of my professional vocabulary, but the idea certainly was — that certain overarching capabilities enable a leader to thrive in a variety of situations, both personally and professionally.
Meta-competency rachets up a collection of related basic skills to a broader state of being
I fired up the Google engine and quickly found a bevy of research and articles on leadership meta-competencies from a range of disciplines. There's no shortage of models and lists and points of view on what constitutes a leadership meta-competency. (See a list of recommended resources at the end of this article.) Some classifications are abstract; others are accessible. Some take a holistic approach; others emphasize how a leader shows up on the job. There are common themes but also original points of view among them.
What I didn't find was a definitive list. This lack inspired me to reflect on the conversations I've had with clients and colleagues on how good leaders think, what they do and how they show up. From this information, I culled a practical, actionable list of the meta-competencies that we foster in our leadership development program We build our curriculum to support these next-level competencies. (Spoiler alert: Several themes recur in the details of this list.)
