Going Beyond Competencies

Leadership development for the post-pandemic era

Post-pandemic world is a misnomer. We are still in the middle of the pandemic especially as it continues to ravage through certain parts of the world. But as good leaders ought to, we must prepare for how to lead as we move past the pandemic. Leadership has been long associated with the act of getting organizational outcomes done by any means possible and necessary. But the pandemic has resulted in a lot of negative impact on employees including issues of mental health, loss of work-life balance, and the worst impact being on women and low-wage workers. Therefore, our leaders have to be cognizant of these impacts and seriously take the ‘human’ element into consideration and be adept at dealing with the collective or mass trauma effect due to the pandemic and help organizations and their followers cultivate resilience.

Leadership development has mostly rested on competency development. But most competency models are based on how to alter one’s behaviors and how others perceive them and not focused on inner transformation, i.e., shifting people’s mental models using deeply transformative methods. To do this, leadership assessment and development must focus on mapping and shifting underlying mental models towards building a better world for all than just getting done more efficiently. Mindfulness and contemplative methodologies-based training and development can help with the following key leadership needs for the pandemic and post-pandemic era.

Prosocial Orientation is defined as an individual’s tendency to feel empathy for others and behave with concern for others. When many private sector organizations are struggling to stay morally relevant faced with societal demands for inclusion, justice, equity, and environmental responsibility, an important question is “does the leader care?” For example, for a leader to be considered empathetic in the competency framework, they are required to demonstrate certain behaviors such as expressing interest in others, asking questions of others, put themselves in others’ positions etc. However, a person can demonstrate all these during good times and slide back into egocentric behaviors during hard times such as the pandemic. But leadership development has mostly focused on and is justified by organizational outcomes defined in capitalistic language, Instead, helps leaders cultivate sustainable pro-socially oriented mindsets through mindfulness practices and identity explorations.

Two scales I recommend are Identification with All Humanity and Social Value Orientation. People who score highly on identification with all humanity tend to lead beyond in-group out-group divides. Social Value orientation captures individuals’ motivations and the magnitude of the concern people have for others. This must also include climate intelligence and sustainability orientation.

Tolerance for Ambiguity is an individual difference that predicts long-term and short-term reactions to what happens in the environment. In contrast to the folk wisdom of good leaders as fearless and firm decision-makers, the pandemic has shown that successful leaders are comfortable with shifting currents of information and engage in decision-making as a flexible process as they receive new information. Cities and countries have gone off and on lockdowns over the period of the pandemic depending on new information on breakouts and spikes in the spread of the virus. Businesses and other employers such as universities have had to respond to these by switching their logistics planning as the new regulations get rolled out.

Ambiguity Tolerance is a practice of the mind and how individuals react to stimuli perceived as ambiguous and is related to psychological well-being. It is also said to be the most important trait for creative work. A leader does not only have to be comfortable with ambiguity but they also need to be comfortable in being the container for the anxiety that ambiguity creates among their followers and organizations. A good scale is available to measure tolerance for ambiguity. Tolerance for ambiguity can be cultivated using contemplative practice, cognitive-behavioral approaches, and thought experiments such as worst-case scenarios to help leaders build resilience.

Cognitive Flexibility refers to the person’s cognizance of alternatives, willingness to adapt to the situation, and their belief in their own ability to be flexible. Related to tolerance for ambiguity, the ability to switch between different thoughts and different actions is a key leadership capacity is a key capacity. It is also important for the leader to model this for the organizational members who struggle with the work-life balance while working from home. The fear of online surveillance using bossware leads to overwork on the part of employees so work life balance is closely related to employee health and well-being. We cannot forget that leaders are also employees and must cultivate the ability to switch between their different thoughts and actions in a healthy way that preserves their agency and health. Several validated scales are available, and you might want to check this one out.

Cognitive Agility is the ability to switch between openness and focus and training to be cognitively agile can help improve emotional intelligence, dynamic decision-making, and personal communication skills. Multiple ongoing decisions in real time context requires the ability to switch between openness and focus. Both openness and focus require present moment awareness. Open Awareness contemplative practice involves paying attention to everything that is happening within ourselves and in our environment in the moment.

Focused attention is disregarding all other stimuli to focus on what is most salient in the moment. Practices such as breathing, and mantra-based meditation are good examples and ways to cultivate focused attention. Occasionally, I semi-joke that the mantra has nothing to do with religion; it could be even your favorite person’s name that we choose to focus on.