"The very essence of leadership is that you have to have a vision. It's got to be a vision you articulate clearly and forcefully on every occasion." – Theodore Hesburgh, President of the University of Notre Dame

Leadership translates vision into reality by inspiring followers to want to experience the change process. And to influence their followers to willingly jump into that experience, leaders need a specific set of competencies to guide their actions. Although competencies will always differ from one leader to the next, having a core set to draw from increases their chance for success. These competencies can be thought of as the inner tools for motivating employees, directing systems and processes, and guiding the business towards common goals that allow the organization to increase its value.

To ensure leaders are able to achieve the required goals and objectives, an organization needs to develop and implement a performance based leadership appraisal process. The goal is to leverage their leaders' competencies to drive the organization's performance. This is best accomplished through an evaluation process that provides feedback as to which competencies meet standards, and which competencies must be improved. It also allows the organization to hire people who meet, or can be trained to the competency standards.

Although many people believe that only the top echelon are leaders, while the rest are managers or supervisors, would leave many organizations open to the whims of the informal leaders that can be found scattered throughout the ranks. While a small company may find that having only one leader works fine, larger and highly competitive environments know that having a number of smaller visions supporting the top organizational goals helps them to do more faster and better.

On the other hand, an organization may call its managers or supervisors leaders, but this does not make it so. They may have the authority to accomplish certain tasks and objectives throughout the organization, but this power does not make them leaders...it simply makes them the boss if they do not have the trust and vision that goes with true leadership.

Competency + Attitude = Performance

Competency is the state or quality of being adequately or well qualified to perform a task. It is synonymous with ability. A person gains competency through education, training, experience, or natural abilities. While there are many definitions of competency, most of them have two common components:

• The competencies are observable or measurable Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities (KSA).
• These KSAs must distinguish between superior and other performers.

Conversely, performance is the accomplishment of a task in accordance with a set standard of completeness and accuracy. While a person may have the skills or knowledge (competency) to perform a task, does not mean he or she will have the desire (attitude) to do so correctly (performance). In other words, competencies give a person the ability to perform, while attitudes give a person the desire to perform. Attitudes change with various events in a person's life. These emotional changes also vary in length of time. For example:

• I lose a loved one and my performance drops for a few months while I am in the grieving process.
• My performance appraisal is due in four weeks. My performance increases in the hope that I will get a better review.
• I am deeply in debt and my performance drops as this burden weighs heavily upon my mind.
• One task is very complex and takes up the majority of my time. As I become more experienced, I learn several methods that speed up the completion of the task. This allows me to concentrate on improving other skills.
• My interest change. Even though I know how to perform a task to standards, I no longer worry if it is performed correctly or not as I am engaged in the tasks that interest me.
• My career leads me to mastering certain tasks as I am very ambitious.
• I do not believe that the task is important, so I do not spend the time to perform it correctly.
• I have a cold. I do as little as possible for a few days until my energy level improves.

Many definitions of competency include attitudes, such as beliefs, values, traits, and motives. But, as shown above, people ride an emotional roller coaster throughout their lifetime, which makes performance a combination of competencies and attitude. Emotions are more than a mood of feeling up or down...they include desires, ambitions, traits, etc. that guide our every action.

On the other hand, some would say that competencies fade away over a period of time if they are not used, but, if it is a real competency, then it take an extremely long time for it to weaken. For example, I consider bicycle riding as one as my personal competencies. While serving in the Army, there was a six year period where I never came near a bicycle. Yet, when I returned to riding, I rode as if I never missed a day. A competency is a skill buried deep within you, and it takes an extremely long period for it to weaken significantly or turn into a liability.

Skills + Knowledge + Attitudes = Observable Behavior

Observable Behavior = Performance Appraisal Rating

"If you don't keep score, you're only practicing."

- Vince Lombardi

Performance Appraisals (often called reviews, evaluations, or assessments) are the measurement of a specific range of skills, knowledge, and attitudes in relation to certain objective standards. The ratings are based upon observations or empirical data in relationship to a set of predefined standards. Although we sometimes make decisions based upon our own personal feelings or gut-level instincts, appraisals must be based upon how well a person has performed to a set standard.

"He who stops being better stops being good."

- Oliver Cromwell

The objective of performance appraisals is to help employees improve their performance and grow as individuals so that the organization can meet its present and future goals in a timely and cost effective manner. Is this how most organizations use them? No. They are used for protection against lawsuits, to justify different levels of pay increases, or to provide once-a-year feedback. In other words, a lot of managers and supervisors view them as an additional burden required by Human Resources. When in fact, they should be viewed as a performance tool. Just as a leader uses speaking skills to encourage the troops and analytical skills to forecast budgets; performance appraisals should be used to encourage great performance and create goals to improve weak competencies.

For many, the performance appraisal is tied in to their pay as a reward system. Tony Hope, a visiting professor at the French Business school INSEAD, spoke of rewards at the Institute of Personnel and Development's Compensation conference. He believes that we need to stop this practice as trust and commitment cannot be fostered while cost-control imperatives dominate organizational thinking. "Just as we have seen that knowledge workers don't respond to a regime of command and control in management style, so they won't perform according to pay systems that are individually based," says Professor Hope, "Organizations must hang on to their best people and these people are exactly those that are least impressed by internal competition within tight budgets...New and powerful forces that are shaping organizations mean that people management professionals are going to have to find ways of collectively rewarding effort. It will be less pay for performance and more pay for participation."

Performance appraisals are normally given at annual or semi-annual time periods. They need to provide specific feedback to the individual as to what competencies need improvement:

• Skills - What areas do I need to train in?
• Knowledge - What areas do I need to learn more about?
• Attitude - Are my inner drives coinciding with the organization's goals?
• Rewards - What am I doing right so I can do more of it? (we all like pats on the back)

Performance Appraisals do not take the place of daily feedback mechanisms. If an individual is shocked or surprised by the evaluation that he or she has received, then you as a leader have not performed your job. An evaluation is the overall scorecard that sums up a person's performance over the rating period, while daily one-on-ones, meetings, and other feedback devices are the tools that leaders use to motivate their employees on to higher performance.

Job Based and Competency Based Models

The major difference between traditional job-based models and competency based model lies in their approach in identifying the KSA needed for successful performance. The dominant approach in human resources has focused on designing organizations around job structures. This traditional job based approach starts with a job analysis to identify job-related tasks, which are then used to identify a list of KSA that are required for successful job performance.

On the other side of the coin are Competency-Based models. These start with the observable behaviors of superior performers to produce a list of grouped competencies, or behavioral indicators, related to effective or superior performance. The question is not which KSAs do we believe are required to perform a job, but which KSAs do superior performers in a job possess and use? Organizational success greatly improves upon hiring individuals who fit the organization, rather than the job. A person-to-organization match provides an organization with the core competencies needed to maintain a competitive advantage by meeting the demands of a rapidly changing environment brought on by corporate restructuring and change initiatives.

To generate superior performance, job holders need core competencies that allow them to quickly jump into other jobs, and distinctive competencies to perform in specific positions. This requires the development of several competency models:

• The first is a set of core or essential competencies. These are the organizational competencies that all individuals are expected to possess. These competencies define what the organization values the most in people. For example, an organization might want each individual to possess teamwork, flexibility, and communication skills. The goal of the core competencies is for individuals to be able to perform in a diverse number of positions throughout the organization.
• The second set is the professional or individual competencies. These distinctive competencies are grouped for each job within the organization. For example, a trainer requires a different set of competencies than an accountant, and a teller requires a different set than a maintenance worker. If there are different levels within the same position, then each job level might also have its own set of vertically derived competencies. The goal is to optimize performance by having the technical skills to perform a job.
• Some jobs also require a third set of specialty competencies. For example, managers require the core and professional competencies discussed above, plus a set of leadership competencies since they occupy a leadership position. Another example would be individuals trained to give medical aid in emergencies. They would require the core, professional, and first-aid (specialty) competencies.

Chart One is one example of how these groups of competencies for leaders might be laid out in a typical organization: core, leadership, and professional.