Promoted to a Leadership Role

Assessing Leadership Competencies

© Joni Rose

Mar 12, 2006

You've been promoted to leader at the blink of an eye. Now what? You feel like a fish out of water as this was not what you anticipated. Leadership promotions happen for all sorts of reasons. It is now your job and you must adjust at lightening speed to your new role. This isn't an easy task but there is help out there.

You have been chosen for the promotion because someone felt you were leadership material. The first step is to accept that fact and be proud that someone saw your potential. If your confidence is lacking, it will be seen by your direct reports so it is imperative that you find ways to boost your confidence. Let's start by assessing your leadership abilities.

Competencies define what skills and knowledge are required to do the job. Human Resources professionals use competencies to help define job descriptions, recruit and promote staff and define training needs. For example, Leadership as a competency can be defined as the process of managing, coaching and influencing others to help them achieve desired outcomes. Leadership is further defined as being able to: see the big picture, identify individual and team motivators, listen objectively and empathetically, stay organized and manage projects, identify strengths of the team and delegate accordingly, monitor progress towards pre-defined goals and objectives, be humble and give credit, model behavioural excellence, have a clear articulated vision inline with the company's strategic plans and be results driven.

A leadership competency assessment can help you determine your areas of weakness. One caution, be honest. Assessments require you to rate yourself through an honest evaluation of your current level of competence. To increase validity, many companies are now looking at 360 degree feedback assessments to include feedback from peers, direct reports, clients/customers, supervisors and so on to gather a complete picture from everyone you work with. Check with your HR representative to see if they have purchased leadership assessments. For a free online assessment go to, Leadership Self Assessment and download the PDF document.

In Leadership Competency Building: Training, Mentors and Mistakes, we'll look at how to take your assessment results and use training, mentoring and learning from mistakes to turn weaknesses into strengths.

Copyright © 2006, Joni Rose and Suite 101. All rights reserved. Any unauthorized use will constitute an infringement of copyright.

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