The Most Important Leadership Competencies

Documenting Which Leadership Competencies Are Most Needed

For decades, we’ve studied the on-the-job experiences that teach critical lessons of leadership. Our researchers have examined how successful managers learn, grow, and change through experiences in their careers.

The critical lessons that successful managers learned from their experiences are represented in key leadership competencies that can be measured, using tools like our widely recognized Benchmarks® for Managers™ assessment, part of our industry-pioneering suite of Benchmarks® 360 assessments.

In addition to providing feedback to help identify an individual leader’s strengths and development needs, our Benchmarks assessments also do what their name suggests by providing leaders with a benchmark of how they’re doing as compared to a meaningful norm group. (We’re able to provide this insight because we have one of the largest leadership research databases in the world, based on over 5 decades of 360-degree feedback on mid-level managers around the world.)

That’s why our Benchmarks assessments are statistically reliable, valid, and comprehensive 360 assessments for evaluating leadership competencies, and they also provide actionable insights to help leaders build on these competencies to grow even more.

The 16 Most Important Leadership Competencies

Based on our decades of research with Benchmarks® for Managers™, we’ve identified the 16 key leadership competencies that are most critical for success in mid- to upper-level manager roles, as well as the 5 biggest potential problems that are most likely to stall or derail an otherwise promising career.

The Most Important Leadership Competencies for Those Leading the Organization

1. Strategic Perspective: Understands the viewpoint of higher management and effectively analyzes complex problems
2. Being a Quick Study: Quickly masters new technical and business knowledge
3. Decisiveness: Prefers quick and approximate actions in many management situations
4. Change Management: Uses effective strategies to facilitate organizational change initiatives and overcome resistance to change

The Most Important Leadership Competencies for Those Leading Others

5. Leading Employees: Attracts, motivates, and develops employees
6. Confronting Problem Employees: Acts decisively and with fairness when dealing with problem employees
7. Participative Management: Involves others, listens, and builds commitment
8. Building Collaborative Relationships: Builds productive working relationships with coworkers and external parties
9. Compassion and Sensitivity: Shows genuine interest in others and sensitivity to employees’ needs
10. Putting People at Ease: Displays warmth and a good sense of humor
11. Respect for Differences: Values people of varying backgrounds, cultures, or demographics

The Most Important Leadership Competencies for Leading Yourself

12. Taking Initiative: Takes charge and capitalizes on opportunities
13. Composure: Demonstrates self-control in difficult situations
14. Work-Life Balance: Balances work priorities with personal life
15. Self-Awareness: Has an accurate picture of strengths and weaknesses and is willing to improve
16. Career Management: Uses effective career management tactics, including mentoring, professional relationships, and feedback channels

Tying Leadership Competencies & Skills Together

These 16 critical leadership competencies also connect to directly to the fundamental 4 leadership skills that we teach in our fundamentals of leadership course:

• Self-awareness connects to the competencies of Self-Awareness and Composure (for Leading Yourself).
• Learning agility connects to the competencies of Learning Agility and Career Management (for Leading Yourself).
• Communication connects to the competencies of Communication and Feedback (when Leading Others).
• Influence connects to the competencies of Building Collaborative Relationships, Influence, and Respect for Differences (when Leading Others).

These connections illustrate how the competencies assessed in our Benchmarks® 360 assessments align with and support the development of the core leadership skills needed in every role and career, providing a comprehensive framework for leadership development.

Lacking Leadership Competencies Can Stall a Career

Avoid These 5 Career Derailers

Our research also found that when leaders lack key leadership competencies, that can wreck their careers. The top 5 causes of career derailment are:

1. Problems With Interpersonal Relationships: Difficulties in developing good working relationships with others
2. Difficulty Building and Leading Teams: Difficulties in selecting and motivating a team
3. Difficulty Changing or Adapting: Resistant to change, learning from mistakes, and developing
4. Failure to Meet Business Objectives: Difficulties in following up on promises and completing a job
5. Too Narrow a Functional Orientation: Lacks depth to manage outside of current function

Learn more about the 5 potential career derailers and how to avoid them.

Benchmark Yourself Against the Competencies Uncovered in Our Research

First, Assess Your Leadership Competencies With 360 Feedback

So, how do you know how you rate when it comes to your own level of leadership competencies?

Wouldn’t it be nice to have a clear picture of your strengths, weaknesses, and areas to improve? What could you learn to improve your future prospects and advance your career?

Using a tool like our our suite of Benchmarks® 360 assessments, you can get in-depth feedback from a range of people who know your work — superiors, peers, direct reports, clients, suppliers — to give you a clearer picture of yourself.

By inviting people all around you to share their feedback, you gain a 360-degree view of your strengths and weaknesses, giving you a benchmark for how you’re doing in each of the most important leadership competencies and a starting point for improving your effectiveness in the future.

Then Create Your Developmental Goals

Just as important as assessing your current skill levels is setting achievable goals. We’ve found that leaders who have received 360-degree feedback on their leadership competencies have a clear sense of direction and are ready to take action, but may need some help understanding what their 360 results really mean.

If your HR or training department is using a 360 feedback tool in conjunction with executive coaching sessions, training workshops, or leadership programs, you’ll be able to measure where you stand on these most critical leadership competencies — and get personalized insights on how to take charge of your own development.

But if 360 feedback isn’t in your future anytime soon, you still have many options to develop these leadership competencies, steer development for yourself, and support others to do the same. You can seek out informal feedback, look for a mentor or coach, seek out heat experiences to learn more on-the-job, or ask for more learning opportunities at work. You may also want to explore our research-based leadership books to take charge of your own learning and growth.

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