Leadership Competencies
"Leadership competencies" is the phrase people search when they want to get better at the job — and the phrase enterprises use to build rating grids that never made anyone a better leader. This pillar keeps the word, because it's the one you'll actually look up, and throws out the framework. A competency isn't a box on an HR scorecard; it's a cluster of observable behaviors, and the behaviors are the only part you can see, get feedback on, and change. Written for the individual leader — a manager, founder, or senior contributor — not for an HR team rolling out a model. What to actually develop, and how you'd know it was working.
It starts here, with the case for behaviors over the framework — the lens every other piece in this pillar applies, one competency at a time: what it actually looks like in the work, how you'd develop it, and how you'd know you had. Not where it sits on a grid.
Start here
Leadership competencies: behaviors, not a framework — the entry-point piece for this pillar. Read it first; the rest extend it.
All articles in this pillar
Communication as a leadership competency, in behaviors
Communication is the highest-stakes leadership competency and the vaguest — until you break it into behaviors. What it looks like, and whether yours works.
How to actually develop a leadership competency
You don't build a leadership competency in a workshop — you build it in a loop: see how you actually behave, change one thing, and re-measure. The mechanics.
Leadership competencies: behaviors, not a framework
Competency models promise a map of good leadership and hand you a checklist nobody acts on. The behavior-level, feedback-driven version that actually grows you.
A leadership competency self-assessment (with examples)
Self-assessment is where competency work starts — and where it goes wrong most. How to rate your own leadership honestly, with examples, and why it's only half.