Leaders Don’t Have to be Competent

In my blog on 31 July titled Cultivating Mindful Leaders (http://bit.ly/Qtf2MQ), I addressed the importance the quality of mindfulness should be in how you select and develop strong leaders.  In this post, I’d like to consider the issue of competence with respect to leadership.  As I mentioned in my earlier article, organizations often select or promote people into positions of leadership based largely on their technical competence.  Most companies have not established alternative means of rewarding technical competence and therefore promote people as a means of recognizing their performance.  Leadership responsibilities usually come with promotion for which many are not well prepared.  Through successive reward cycles, a highly competent individual in their field of expertise can find themselves in a senior position but without the requisite relationship skills to lead a team.  Sound familiar?  I’ve seen this situation repeated time and time again not only in hi-tech companies, but others as well.

Within the executive ranks, the selection process often considers someone whose specific technical skills matter less.  You may have been puzzled when a senior executive from a completely different industry is selected over highly competent internal candidates; this happens on a frequent basis.  Certainly, the new executive isn’t expected to know the industry, customers, or company at a level and depth of knowledge where they would be considered ‘competent’ from a technical perspective.  However, where these individuals are often competent is leading people and it’s their skills, mindfulness, and ability to motivate others that is sought.  Mindful leaders are aware of both their strengths and weaknesses and are unafraid to rely on others where their own competence is lacking; they don’t have to be technically competent, just aware enough to know where to get assistance and who to rely on.  Great leaders can make the transition not only across organizations, but industries and roles as well. 

There are many options you can consider to break the cycle of rewarding technical competence with leadership positions; people can be recognized through other financial and non-financial means that don’t automatically require promotion.  Depending on your company, cash rewards, stock grants or options, or other forms of reward (such as company sponsored travel) can be considered.  Non-financial incentives can (and should) include public recognition celebrations, employee of the month awards, prizes, or products (such as a tablet or laptop).  You should consider seeking employee input into the types of recognition they believe strikes the right balance.  The key point is that superior technical competence should not be the sole or even primary reason for selecting someone for a leadership role unless you’re fully prepared to surround them with the tools and resources for them to grow into the expectations you have for your leaders.  As I highlighted in my earlier blog, thrusting someone into a leadership position when they’re not ready will almost guarantee they grow into mediocre or ineffective managers causing more harm than good in the future.

And when you find yourself in a situation where you have a highly competent individual from a technical perspective who is equally prepared to be a mindful leader, you have a potential rock star on your hands.  When you can combine those two qualities in a single package, magic can happen.  Leadership is a people intensive responsibility and people in those positions have the highest potential to impact entire organizations either for the positive or the negative.  Selecting and growing leaders requires the highest degree of care and deliberation and should never be a matter of checking a technically ‘competent’ box.

Duane Grove is founder of Connect2Action, a strategy execution specialist at the intersection of employee engagement and executive leadership, igniting innovation as a lever to accelerate your growth.  Follow Duane on Twitter @connect2action.