Can Competency Models Inspire Change?
What inspires you? I imagine competency models do not make the list. And yet, I’ve seen multiple clients this year integrating competencies into leadership development experiences for both growth and larger system change management. I have found myself truly inspired by how leaders are using competency models as a toolset to lead organizational change and transformation, address adaptive problems, and simply encourage and grow better together through a difficult season.
Most recently, I viewed inspiring Fellows of Clark Atlanta University’s HBCU Executive Leadership Institute’s (ELI) inaugural cohort presenting their adaptive leadership challenge presentations. They shared leadership approaches, lessons learned and applications of ELI competencies. Fellows received feedback and supportive ideas from other Fellows, Legacy HBCU leaders and their mentors, and coaches. These inspiring leaders are serving their HBCU missions and broader communities by addressing adaptive problems that require new perspectives and solutions with complex partner engagement.
Has your organization considered using a custom competency model or refreshing the one you currently use to aid your organization in achieving 2022 goals and beyond? Perhaps the remote or hybrid work environment and complexity of the past 24 months has amplified needs for culture and business change. Well-designed behavioral competency models align to your business strategy and help define a supportive culture. Such models create common language for leaders to illuminate the behaviors, skills, and mindsets that matter most to achieving the organization’s aims in working together, serving customers, and gaining competitive advantage.
Thus, for competency models to support business and culture change they need to be designed, communicated, embedded, and applied with heavy stakeholder involvement.
Let’s fast-forward beyond design to a few examples illustrating how clients have involved stakeholders and reinforced the development value of competency models for inspiring the organization’s change goals.
I acknowledge that competency models alone do not inspire me. What I do find inspiring are real leaders pursuing meaningful business and personal growth in collaboration with others. Application of competency models simply helps those leaders drive change, growth, fuel clear communication, and inspire others to follow.
To develop a foundational knowledge of competencies, read the following blog.
