5 Core Leadership Capabilities You Need To Be Impactful

Leadership Capability Model The 5 Core Capabilities You Need To Be Impactful

Why is leadership important?

Poor or lacking leadership tangibly impacts turnover by 32%, revenue margins by 7% per annum and market value up to 25%.

On the culture side, it means vision isn’t effectively turned into direction for employees.

Capability vs potential The good news is you can find and develop leaders based on two fronts: capability and potential.

Leadership capability refers to the knowledge and skills a person can learn to do, while leadership potential covers those innate qualities that reflect who a person is.

Why both?

Assessing both capability and potential helps organisations understand the skills gaps that need to be bridged to develop individual contributors into leaders.

It’s crucial to look at both because one gives an indication of past and current performance and skillsets, while the other shows the personal factors that enable someone to grow.

5 High-Level Capabilities

Why high-level?

Lean, concise leadership frameworks – with say, 5 high-level capabilities – are scalable to different levels of management while retaining a core set expected of leadership. By and large, most great leaders embody the same capabilities.

Strategic Thinking Clarity of vision, future direction and strategic intelligence are commonly sought-after capabilities in leaders, who should be constantly looking ahead while enabling their teams to create value now.

Thought Leadership Thought leaders can drive conversation, influence others, lead change and shape perceptions where others can’t.

They’re also important for conveying best practices and mission-critical knowledge.

Execution Leaders ensure engagement with company outcomes through results-based high performance. They’re the ones who know what decisions are going to positively impact the bottom line. By aligning jobs and strategy, they are better able to address specific elements of a roadmap.

Develop People & Culture It’s an inherent leadership quality to be able to empathise with, influence and manage the needs of multiple people outside of oneself – making people leadership the most behavioural capability of all.

Competitive Advantage Building capability and talent fit in here. Above all else, capability drives business and people drive capability. A lack of talent can force the wrong people into critical roles at any time, let alone precisely the wrong time.

Assess Capability & Potential

How can you do it?

Without a reliable gauge of leadership potential, much of your organisation’s long-term success is left to chance.

A leadership capability framework is the most helpful tool for assessment here. But how does one effectively assess both leadership capability and potential?

Define Your Pathway Succession planning should be part of all organisations.

Considering things like lateral career moves, the trajectory for leadership doesn’t always need to be straight up the totem pole. There just needs to be structures in place for employees to progress and for HR to track candidates’ potential.

Choose Your Methodologies In other words, how are you assessing potential? There are a few methods to use (and pros and cons to all of them).

Consider 360 feedback, self-assessments, training programs, performance reviews, stretch assignments and even personality tests.

You can learn more about this topic by checking out the full article: https://acornlms.com/enterprise-learningmanagement/leadership-capability-model