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A Message from OSI
Welcome to spring and the beginning of what is hopefully our new, next normal. After our year of angst there are green shoots pushing through, and a light at the end of our pandemic and recession tunnel! After receiving my two jabs of Pfizer, and waiting two weeks for immunity to kick in, it has been wonderful to recently visit friends and family who had also been vaccinated. Hugs all around!
In this issue of The Navigator, we will provide a summary report of our recent research into remote leadership. Here’s a spoiler alert! Our research did reveal dramatic shift in competency priorities for remote leaders. You’ll find an overview below and a link to more complete findings.
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Remote Leadership Reseach Results
Unmute Yourself: What Remote Team Members Say are Essential Leader Behaviors
Bruce Griffiths M.S., Deborah Pettry Ph.D., and Michael Slatofff, M.A.
Executive Summary
Our abrupt shift in 2020 to remote work seems likely to stay to some degree for countless individuals. This has come with personal and social costs for many. This raises the questions, what are the differences, if any, in what remote teams need from their leaders? How does/should leadership change in a remote environment?
To get at these questions, in December 2020 – February 2021, with Deb Pettry, PhD., we conducted a survey to compare current perceptions of required leadership competency in remote settings with our 20+ years of competency validation research (in almost exclusively face-to-face settings). We surveyed a variety of remote team members from various organization levels, asking them to think about their experiences being led by others remotely. We asked them to rate their remote leaders on essential competencies and to comment on current leadership needs and mistakes.
While leadership competencies didn’t change per se, their inflection certainly did. In an initial comparison of the top 10 competencies needed in face-to-face, versus remote, settings there were dramatic shifts. Communicativeness and Active Listening now jumped to most important, and added to this top 10 were Relationship Building, Team Management, and Initiative, replacing Problem Solving, High Standards, Self-Objectivity, and Talent Development. In short, the message is “communicate with me and pay attention to me.”
Literature Review Findings and Survey Results
Our literature review suggested that working on remote teams exacerbates issues of trust, communications, and empathy between leaders and members.
Our survey results confirmed that and more by revealing a marked increase in emphasis by survey respondents on the communications and socioemotional competencies.
As noted above, ratings revealed a clear shift in how essential certain leadership competencies were in remote settings. In an initial comparison of the top 10 competencies needed in face-to-face versus remote, there were dramatic shifts. Communicativeness jumped to most important, and added to this top 10 were Active Listening, Relationship Building, Team Management, and Initiative, replacing Problem Solving, High Standards, Self-Objectivity, and Talent Development.
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As you can see in the tables, Communicativeness didn’t just jump to the first spot; it was unanimously seen as essential in their remote leaders by all respondents. Across hundreds of similar surveys this is a highly unusual result. It clearly signals that remote team members greatly need clear and regular two-way communications across every channel available. This includes exchanges that are not just leader to team, but also leader to individual team members, and team member to team member.
Please click this link to see our complete summary. Thanks also to superb support from Crystal Matsuura and Michael Slatoff for survey design, administration, and analysis.
To discuss this report or to learn how we can provide your organization with this same survey, targeted 360° assessments, competency modeling, leadership development, executive coaching, and talent management systems, contact:
Bruce Griffiths: bgriffiths@orgsysint.com Deborah Pettry: deb@learningzenith.com
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Announcements
New Polaris® Licensees
We welcome our newest Polaris® Competency Model licensees, Caleres – Famous Footwear, Amy's Kitchen, and The City of Central Point Oregon to the Polaris® License community!
Caleres is headquartered in St. Louis, MO. The 10,000+ Caleres employees support more than a dozen footwear brands including Dr. Scholl’s, Naturalizer, and Blowfish Malibu. We look forward to helping Caleres introduce, and apply, the Polaris® competency language across their talent management systems.
Amy's Kitchen is a family-owned, privately held company founded in Petaluma, California in 1987 by Andy and Rachel Berliner. All of Amy's 250+ products are vegetarian and made with organic ingredients. The company has grown to $500+ million in sales with multiple locations throughout the northwest.
The City of Central Point Oregon is located in the beautiful Rogue River Valley near Medford. A city of nearly 18,000 it's famous for cheese, wine and chocolate - the perfect party starter trifecta.
New Virtual Polaris® Certification Workshops
We are now offering the Polaris® Certification Workshops via webinar (Zoom) for individual coaches and/or HR professionals interested in the OSI Polaris® Competency Model and its supporting applications, especially the 360° developmental assessment. For more information, please contact Crystal Matsuura at cmatsuura@orgsysint.com or 1-858-455-0923.
Leading the Sustainability Transformation: Certificate Program Presented by OSI Partner WholeWorks
Leading businesses toward sustainability is one of the highest-stakes professions of our time, which is why WholeWorks—a long time partner of OSI—has launched the ‘Leading the Sustainable Transformation’ Professional Certificate Program, based on the same simulation-based training techniques used by pilots, military, and police to create a realistic experience for professionals and leaders throughout organizations to sharpen their skills through experience. Participants work together in global teams, developing their systems thinking skills as they untangle cause-and-effect relationships within a complex business ecosystem that extends beyond the four walls of a company to include its impact on environmental, social, and economic systems. The spring program runs April 19-June 27, with registration due by April 12. The fall program runs September 13-November 21, with registration due by September 6. For more information: https://www.wholeworks-lst.com/affiliates or contact support@wholeworks-lst.com.
Partnership – OSI and qChange® (HQ Bend, Oregon)
As recognized in our world of assessment centers, one of the most high-profile situations in organizations to display (or disappoint) competence is during the ubiquitous meeting. It’s estimated that leaders spend 50% of their time in meetings! So, the meeting context is perfect for providing the fast and frequent feedback required for behavioral change in key competencies like Active Listening, Composure, Initiative, Influence, or Informal Communications.
OSI’s newest partner, qChange, has developed a powerful new software tool that allows real time feedback on performance during meetings. It then provides behavioral “nudges” immediately before targeted meetings, and give the leader an opportunity to get feedback on the behaviors immediately after. This helps to shape future behavior in the desired direction. The qChange tool, Leader Experience (LX) is a much-needed experiential action step in a developmental plan prompted by a Polaris® 360 survey, assessment center, or performance appraisal.
We look forward to future collaborations with qChange (www.qchange.com).
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Book Links:
Competencies at Work: Providing a Common Language for Talent Management
Co-authored by our very own president/senior consultant, Bruce Griffiths, and our business partner, Enrique Washington. Competencies at Work is a thorough, yet digestible look at contemporary competency modeling. It will equip readers to understand, build, and implement competency models as a foundational and integrating element in talent management systems. Readers will understand how competency models have evolved to be the current best-practice in defining criteria for all talent management applications such as selection interviews, promotion panels, assessment centers, job descriptions, and learning objectives. The book also provides specific guidance in the steps needed to establish a sustainable model, with research results on universal competencies contained in most contemporary models.
Competencies at Work is available now through Business Expert Press or Amazon.
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Redefining Competency Based Education: Competence for Life
Co-authored by our very own president/senior consultant, Bruce Griffiths, and our business partner, Nina Jones Morel. Redefining Competency Based Education provides an expanded definition of career competence, based on actual employer hiring and promotion requirements, which enhances university curricula to better prepare students for work and life. Readers will learn how private sector competency models have evolved to define criteria for hiring, promoting, and training talent.
Redefining Competency Based Education is available now through Business Expert Press or Amazon.
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At Organization Systems International, we are celebrating more than 40 years of quality, service, and innovation. We deliver client success with a high-performance approach designed to enhance occupational relationships, improve operational efficiency, and sustain customer relationships.
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