By Oliver Anderson
Chief Executive Officer
 

At 10x we are improving the people decisions of our clients through real-time, actionable insights that reveal a better way to meet the needs and requirements of their people.

A question we are often asked is, “what are the best leadership behaviours to measure?”

Well conventional wisdom says a lot – A huge amount.

A quick search of the term ‘key leadership competencies’ returns 110 million answers. They range from either theoretical models to more practitioner based lists.

Theoretical models such as Goleman’s (2000) research, lists vision, coaching, affiliative, democratic, pace setting and commanding as key behaviours, while Culter’s (2005) ‘jigsaw’ of best practice details vision, motivation, empowerment, relationships, communications and setting an example as fundamental.

Practitioner-based lists, such as this example from Indeed, details a list of eleven key attributes:

• Interpersonal communication
• Motivating others
• Written communication
• Honesty/integrity
• Problem solving
• Developing others
• Vision/planning
• Creativity/innovation
• Conflict resolution
• Delegation and Valuing Diversity

These link to a further set of essential skills, adding active listening, goal setting, diplomacy and decisiveness to the previous already exhaustive list.

On the surface, all the behaviors listed appear to be important skills for good leaders to possess – but that’s a very long list, from just three sources.

So how do we identify what really should be measured, and is this one-size-fits-all leadership behavioral model the correct approach?

Surely the context (e.g organization, country, team) must play an immense role in deciding what is essential.

Jumping into the 10x databank we can answer this and much more.

What we can definitively tell you is that there isn’t one unique set of leadership competencies that work across all industries, companies or even within single entities. Different sets of knowledge, skills, and abilities are required by different leaders in different contexts.

Figure 1 shows the output from 10x Optimize of the main drivers of leadership performance for a globally dispersed leadership team in the service industry, whilst Figure 2 displays the drivers in the beverage industry.

Service Industry

Figure 1. Service industry view of the main drivers of leadership performance amongst their global leadership populations

Beverage Industry

Figure 2. Beverage industry view of the main drivers of leadership performance amongst their global leadership populations

As you can see, the top five drivers of performance in these cohorts are completely different.  Whilst both contain behaviors from the theoretical or practitioner examples given earlier, the different contexts, changes between and make up of these teams and businesses means that the leadership competencies that matter in both are not the same.

So, why use a fixed leadership model? Work with 10x to work on a leadership competency framework that is relevant for YOUR leaders in the context of YOUR organization’s success. Then let our algorithm find out what really matters in each part of your business to allow you to effectively hire and develop leaders that optimize your growth.

Want to identify YOUR leaders?

Book a demo now and find out what 10x can do for you.

Oliver Anderson is the Chief Executive Officer at 10x Psychology, and a leading Human Resources professional with a broad base of experience across analytics, people, and change management. Author of two books on his work across statistical analysis in the Premier League, Oliver combines his unique understanding of people analytics and predictive performance with his people management abilities to manage the expansion and quality of our Solutions. Find Oliver on Linkedin.