The Core Skills of a Great Leader
More often than not, job applicants work hard to buff up their resumes to highlight their greatest achievements, their career experiences, and their educational attainment and secure a position they desire or one that is better than what they expected. However, what resumes fail to show are the true personalities and talents of these applicants―traits that also cannot be measured in the short amount of time that candidates are interviewed by recruiters or human resource leaders. Thus, it often pays to look for exceptional talent from within instead.
According to management consulting company Gallup, many great managers select staff members based on talent, rather than experience, education, or intelligence. These talents are defined by studying the talents needed to achieve in 150 distinct roles. Gallup identified these talents as striving, thinking, relating.
Striving
When it comes to this core talent, managers assess employees for their drive to achievement, need for expertise, and drive to put beliefs in action. Striving talents explain the “why” of a person: what motivates them, what drives them to stand out, and what performance is good enough for them.
Thinking
The Thinking talent can be seen in employees who have focus, discipline, and personal responsibility. If Striving talents explain the “why”, Thinking talents explain the “how” of a person: how they think, how they make their decisions, how focused they are, how strategic or non-linear their line of thought is, and more.
Relating
Lastly, the Relating talent can be seen in employees who have empathy, attentiveness to individual differences, ability to persuade, taking charge. This talent relates to the “who” of a person: who they trust, who they build relationships with, and who they want to confront or avoid.
When employees have these talents, they likely have what it takes to be leaders in their organization. There are many tools in the market today that can help HR leaders measure the talents and skills sets of potential C-level employees. Q2 HR Solutions partner AQR International, for instance, offers a mental toughness assessment tool called MTQ48 Assessment. The psychometric tool contains 48 items measuring mental toughness or the mindset that every person adopts in everything they do. Several studies have shown that mental toughness is a major factor in performance, positive behavior, well-being, and aspiration.
The MTQ48 Assessment and the mental toughness model measures mindset on four scales: control (how people believe they can do things and manage their emotions), commitment (how people create and achieve their goals), challenge (how people accept roadblocks and learn from them), and confidence (how much people believe in their skills and their ability to influence others).
By considering these scales, HR leaders can gauge which employees have the potential to hold leadership roles. In today’s economic climate, where businesses strive to survive the COVID-19 pandemic and still stay ahead of their competition, it pays to invest in talent. Even more so, the rewards of promoting or hiring internally are far greater than hiring externally.
To learn more about this assessment, email us at info@q2hrs.com.