As businesses are moving towards more global outreach and virtual teams over international locations, the ability to deal with complexity and ambiguity, maintain a strategic perspective, foster engagement, and understand and respect cultural diversity, become key factors for success. Last July, Edyta posted her blog discussing the competencies global Leaders need to succeed. The research behind the blog led us to adapt our own assessment framework so it would better reflect your needs. Consequently, we have supplemented our standing framework with important attributes we thought would add value to the way we assess performance potential and fit. We are now ready and very excited to present you with our new framework for assessments.
Our new assessment framework is organized around four sections: Thought Leadership, People Leadership, Operational Leadership and Cultural Leadership. We believe these categories encompass the various facets needing to be measured when selecting the best people for a position or developing them into their next role.
Let’s look at how these four sections are broken down…
We start with Thought Leadership, which we define as a Leader’s ability to anticipate trends, articulate viable business strategies and propose innovative and sustainable solutions. As organizations become more complex and structured in a matrix over various sites or lines of business, the ability to think multi-dimensionally, simplify reality, deal with ambiguity and exercise sound judgement is paramount. In line with strategic orientation, Leaders should have a clear picture of the organization’s future, anticipate business trends and understand the long-term implications of their decisions.
Next is People Leadership, which is a Leader’s ability to relate and build trust with others, as well as guide, engage and develop people. These are key factors correlated with retaining, growing and bringing the best out of people. Managing relationships and people performance enables Leaders to build effective connections, manage stakeholders and foster people development through coaching and empowerment. As organizations are becoming more global, Leaders often have to manage their team remotely, over multiple locations and with fuzzier lines of reporting. Therefore, essential to being an effective People Leader is the ability to share information openly and honestly, be transparent, and work respectfully and effectively with people from various backgrounds.
Operational Leadership focuses on delivery. We look at a Leader’s ability to drive business results, execute strategies and meet commitments. Measuring how skilled they are at prioritizing issues, developing action plans, and coordinating various activities and resources allows us to see how they get things done. Furthermore, by evaluating how they make decisions and drive efficiency, we can capture their ability to achieve results and meet business objectives.
Cultural Leadership is our concluding section. It focuses on a Leader’s ability to shape organizational climate with their values, beliefs and practices. The values they bring to the table, their ability to demonstrate those values, and how they self-manage steers them to create a specific environment within the organization, which will in turn affect the formal and informal way people work with each other on a daily basis.
We have already received some feedback about our new way of thinking and are thrilled by the enthusiasm it generated. We truly welcome your thoughts and opinions on this key service we provide you with and are eager to test, refine and live it together with you.
