Running head: LEADERSHIP COMPETENCIES 1

Leadership Competencies

Ben Sunderman

Siena Heights University

1/31/2020
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Leadership Competencies

There are many leadership competencies that make leaders efficient and effective.

Leaders are individuals that influence a group to achieve various goals. There are a few things

that a leader needs to be able to do in order to influence people toward goals. Leaders need to

gain credibility to be followed. Leaders gain followers through relational competencies.

Additionally, a leader needs to be able to keep people on focus and maintain a productive

direction for the team. Leaders direct their team through operational competencies. Relational

and operational competencies are required for a leader to be able to be effective and efficient in

their goals. Whether the team has goals of winning games, or making an important change, the

leader has a huge impact on the team meeting their goals.

Forsyth and Maranga (2015) did an analysis on what leadership competencies are

required for a leader to be a leader. What was found is that leaders must display five different

sets of skills, social skills, networking skills, knowledge, self-awareness, and engagement in

personal transformation. Of these competencies identified in the study as the basic competencies,

many of them are relational or self reflection focused (Forsyth & Maranga, 2015). What can be

determined from this study is that leaders, at the basic function, are a relational glue that holds

people together. They can bring new people onto a team, but without a leader on a team there are

many different minds that do not have a funnel for their ideas. By having a person focusing on

being the funnel for the group, determining a set course of action for the team, the team can be

focused on the same objectives.

Juras (2018) investigated leaders’ relational competencies and how these competencies

impact work outcomes of employees or teammates. What was found is that there is a strong

relationship between leadership’s interpersonal competencies the teams ability to achieve their
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goals. The relationship is a positive relationship, where, the more relational a leader is with their

team, the higher a team can perform in the workplace. A leader can be relational to their team by

trying to find connections with their team. A leader can also increase their relational

competencies by making efforts to know their team members for more than just team members.

The leaders with high relational competencies are likely to be considered friends of the team

members (Juras, 2018).

Shaikh, Bisschoff, and Botha (2018) wanted to see how well business school educated

managers showed managerial and leadership competencies. The pair looked at eleven different

management and leadership competencies. What was found is that there is a direct correlation

that if one of these competencies investigated improves, the rest improve with it. The

competencies tested were personal value systems, career awareness, ethical and external factors,

leading into change, cultural sensitivity, team building, strategic leadership, conflict management

skills, communication, global leadership mindset, and emotional intelligence. There was a

finding that of these subjects, everyone had scored low on personal values systems and career

awareness (Shaikh, Bisschoff, & Botha, 2018). Looking at the competencies investigated, it is

interesting to find that many of them deal with relational aspects and not so much focused on

results analysis. There are some competencies present that deal with analysis of results, but it can

be inferred that most academics studying management do not find results to be an effective focus

for management.

What was found is that relational competencies, as well as self reflection competencies

hold the basic needs of a leader. A leader, at its simplest, is the funnel and glue that keeps a team

heading in the same direction. For a leader to be more effective, they can increase their analytical

competencies to make more calculated decisions when directing their team. They can also
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increase their operational competencies to be able to do the tasks of their industry more

effectively. By having high competency of their industry, they can care for their team more

deeply by understanding what it takes to get the job done. The understanding of what the job

requires enables the leader to provide the right resources into their team so that they can be more

successful than they were before.

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References

Forsyth, B. & Maranga, K. (2015). Global leadership competencies and training. Journal

of Leadership. 12(5). p. 76-83.

Juras, A. (2018). Relational leadership competencies and employees’work outcomes –

Insight into practice. 30th International Scientific Conference on Economic and Social

Development. p. 13-22.

Shaikh, A., Bisschoff, C. A., & Botha, C. J. (2018) Measuring management and

leadership competencies of business school educated managers in South Africa. Journal

of Business and Retail Management Research. 13(2). p. 152-166.