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Growing Public Service Leaders
The 3Cs in Developing Leaders
Part II: Competency
By Ray Blunt
GovLeaders.org
Lists. We are a people who simply love lists. There must be something in our
American psyche that craves to know what is up, what is down; what is hot and
what is not. Maybe it’s our competitive juices that flow so readily toward
comparisons. A brief review of the newspapers and magazines at the end of each
year will give the list-hungry among us more than enough fodder, be it the top
sports stories of the year; the best and worst dressed people; or even what’s
“in” and what’s “out” for next year. Not surprisingly, it was only recently that
The Book of Lists hit the best-seller list (no pun
intended) to be followed by such imitators as The Writing
Teacher’s Book of Lists (an oxymoron?), The
Disinformation Book of Lists, and, inevitably, The
Best Book of Lists, Ever!
Closer to home, a very important list in the Federal Government is the list of
Executive Core Qualifications (ECQs), which has 5 components making up the Core,
22 competencies that define the 5 Core components and, to top it all off, 5
fundamental competencies that apply to all of the
ECQs. Whew! So, are the ECQs just another list? Not really, but the ECQs
are an expression of one of the 3Cs that should
characterize every effective leader: competency. The other two Cs are character
and chronos (for how a leader uses the scarcest resource—time—see
Part I of this series).
Let’s begin this conversation about competency with a very brief history. In
mid-1990s, OPM identified the ECQs following a lengthy process that recognized
that the government needs more than competent managers; it also needs effective
leaders. In benchmarking the best practices in the private sector, OPM
researchers found that every top organization attempted to describe what they
expected from their leaders and then used these descriptive expectations (i.e.
competencies) for selection and development as well as for rewards and
promotion. In addition to that benchmarking, OPM conducted extensive
research in the field of leadership in general and consulted with Senior
Executives and professional organizations. The first ECQs and their attendant
competencies were published in 1996 and began to be incorporated much like the
private sector into the various human resources functions. Not that much has
changed in the ECQs in the 13 years since then. If you want to refresh your
memory, go to this link:
http://www.opm.gov/ses/recruitment/ecq.asp. (I won’t list them for you.)
But like all lists, even good ones like the ECQs, there are problems here.
First, we can’t remember lists. Our brains are made such that we simply do not
remember this way. We remember in contexts, stories, parables—not long, bulleted
lists even if they are important.
Second, lists make everything seem equal. From first to last, each item seems
like it’s equally important (or unimportant) whether it’s Information Technology
Management, Decisiveness, Strategic Thinking, or Vision. Some of us are tempted
to conclude that if everything is important, nothing is important; hence, the
ECQs can lose their usefulness if we’re not careful.
Third, generic lists do not necessarily prove helpful to every organizational
situation. Did the Department of Homeland Security need to be formed with
leaders who possess all of these ECQs and the attendant 27 competencies or did
they need others? Or just a few? Do DoD leaders need to have these to the same
extent that FDA leaders do or do they have differing requirements for leader
competency? What about those leaders who will take on the economic crisis?
What do we all need to see in their competencies to help transform this grave
situation and change our past national and global economic policies?
Finally, there is the reality check. In all honesty, are candidates for SES
positions really rated according to these lists or do they become convenient
rubrics against which to write applications? Are those who receive bonuses and
promotions the most exemplary at employing these competencies? Do we pick future
leaders at lower levels based on their progress toward these competencies? And,
do we have any wisdom that goes beyond naming the 27 competencies as to how we
grow such qualities in the next generation? On those questions there is a bit
too much silence.
Now you might think I am making a case against the ECQs and long lists of
competencies in general, but stay tuned. The story is a bit bigger than that.
While the ECQ approach does have its limitations, I’d like us to think about
competency in a leader somewhat differently. No one would argue that we want
incompetent leaders; in fact, the political case
that is being made in this new administration is that we need better leaders in
government from the President, to the Congress, to the generals, to Senior
Executives, and we might as well lump private sector business leaders like
insurance company execs and mortgage industry loan bundlers into the mix while
we’re at it. Most people believe they have seen enough failed leadership to last
a lifetime, and the global crises we read about every day make it even more
imperative we have excellent, absolutely competent leaders. As we hear over and
over again, we need leaders who can produce change and, guess what? That is the
ultimate test of a leader—that they can produce significant change.
So let me provide a few thoughts on leader competency that might make navigating
your own development as a leader or the development of others slightly more
coherent than a long list. It’s simply my personal short list based on a dozen
years of teaching leaders and 35 years being one and yet lacking a good deal of
what I have begun to find is critical. You are certainly free to disagree or add
your own key competencies in the comment area below.
One quality valued in leaders is the ability to build an
organization where truth and transparency prevail. Sound simple? It is
not. I have pondered for many years now Max DePree’s statement, “The first task
of a leader is to define reality . . .” as set forth in his little gem,
Leadership is an Art. Essentially what he means is
what I have found in every single organization I have consulted with: lying
quietly within are “dangerous truths” (as Annette Simmons describes them)—things
everyone knows but are afraid to voice. The Emperor’s New Clothes is only one
metaphor that describes this tendency. Lack of truth telling promotes fear and
fear leads to distrust and a loss of creativity and innovation. Leaders need to
ensure that people tell them the truth about themselves and then, after having
modeled the climate by soliciting honest feedback and acting on it, they need to
ensure truth telling exists from top to bottom. Adults can be trusted with the
truth; yet, paternalistic organizations hide the truth because they cannot trust
that everyone is mature enough to handle it. Are we going to lay any people off?
Will we be reorganized—again? How will the next promotion be decided? Truth
telling changes the entire climate of an organization, making it healthy and
leads to a healthy culture for change where people trust the leader and each
other without fear.
Also, I have learned from many I have taught and had conversations with over the
years that the best leaders take complexity and bring
simplicity to it. You might call it focus or prioritization or even
alignment, but it is a competency that leaders need to have. This is why
metaphors such as Plato’s Cave have endured for so long in communicating complex
ideas such as reality. For example, Jim Collins’ widely acclaimed book Good to
Great begins with a discussion of leadership and of leaders, concluding from his
five years of research that the very best leaders—Level V as he refers to
them—possess two competencies: a resolute and unflinching
focus on the purpose of the organization coupled with a deep sense of humility.
That’s all. How that plays out in the other factors he has identified that make
an organization great are expressed in metaphors—the hedgehog concept, the
flywheel, and getting the right people on the bus and in the right seats. But
the leadership competency that is valued in his research above all others is
that of discipline—self-discipline and organizational discipline to understand
and to keep focused on the purpose and to resolutely eschew arrogance in favor
of humility. Too many ancillary and hidden agendas can sidetrack the best
leaders and the best organizations. Arrogant self promotion in a leader will
always be a stumbling block for results.
I have also found that leaders need to focus on being competent at what no one
else in the organization can do. As far as I can tell, there are at least two
things only the leader can do. One is to grow the next
generation of leaders in their organization. Putting people in
challenging and different work situations and coaching them is something only a
leader can pull off. Being a mentor, being a teacher in the workplace during
teachable moments, and above all being an example—these are the things leaders
need to be good at. If they are not, they will lack the bench strength to tackle
tough jobs in their organization. If the leader is devoted her own care and
feeding toward advancement, the head will be healthy, but the body will atrophy
such that when the leader walks away, the organization will have to start from
scratch.
The other thing that only leaders can do is to shape the
culture of the organization. The basic assumptions of how things work
here, what is important, what is valued, what differences there are between the
values espoused and lived out by senior leaders—these are all elements of
organization culture. It is a leader’s job to understand what their culture is,
how to change it if necessary, and leverage that culture toward excellent
performance for the service of others. Culture is the fine sand that can destroy
the gears of change, gradually grinding to a halt any effort to make things
better. Only leaders can attend to this yet it is one of the most complex of
problems and demands persistent attention. Good culture on the other hand
becomes a competitive advantage that competitors cannot duplicate. Southwest
Airlines is a good case in point. All airlines do the same things, but somehow
Southwest has created a climate where from the pilot to the baggage handler,
they simply do it better. Wiser men than I attribute it to their culture.
Finally, on my short list, I remember a story told to me of General Bill Creech
who revolutionized the Air Force approach to quality. He expressed his view of
how to lead people by one simple maxim: let your people know
that you care about them, that you love them. With it, you have great
latitude for forgiveness; without it, nothing else is important in leading
people. Now a lot of competencies in leading people go into that simple
distillation of the decades of experience of a superior senior leader like
General Creech: care about your people so that they know it. Go out on the
flight lines in the middle of the night to talk with the maintenance workers;
learn their names; ask about their kids; do something if their family has
problems. You get the point: have the self discipline to express sincere care
about others.
So what do we have in the end? Another doggone list you might say. But it’s a
short list. It’s not quite exhaustive but it’s almost there. But given time and
space, I’d prefer some help.
So here’s the question for some conversation: What
competencies do you value most in a leader? What competencies do you most see
lacking within the government or within your organization? We’re all here
to learn to become better leaders so let’s see what wisdom bubbles up for the
good of us all.
Ray Blunt is currently the Associate Director and Fellow at
the Washington Institute for Faith, Vocation and Culture. For the past
12 years
he has served as a leadership consultant and teacher for the Council for
Excellence in Government and the Federal Executive Institute as well as for
several government and non-profit organizations. He spent 35 years in public
service in the US Air Force and the US Department of Veterans Affairs. He is B.J.'s husband of 43 years and the father of two grown children, and grandfather
of five aspiring servant leaders.
©2009 GovLeaders.org
