Five key skills needed by good leaders

HR management expert Dave Ulrich says good leaders today need five key skills: to be a strategist, an executor, a talent manager, a human capital developer and able to build personal trust.

Dave Ulrich, an HR management consultant, has published 25 books exploring the profession.

Dave Ulrich is an HR management consultant who has published 25 books exploring the profession. The American, 62, who has consulted for more than half of the Fortune 200 companies, is holding a seminar on talent management, leadership and culture tomorrow at The Address, Dubai Marina. Here Mr Ulrich, also a professor of business administration at the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, explains how modern leadership has evolved:

What’s the most common question people ask you?

aWhat do I have to do to be effective and successful? I like to respond by asking people to reflect on: what do I want? People need to define their measure of success, then work to achieve it. Generally, success requires doing something unique to the skill set of the individual, and making sure that the unique contribution will add value to someone else. Value is often defined by the receiver more than the giver, so I ask leaders who they are trying to serve.

What are the most important leadership qualities today?

It goes by a lot of names: learning agility, resilience, perseverance, grit or growth mindset. Does the leader have an ability to learn and grow as the requirements of the job evolve? Some leaders who have succeeded may not succeed in the future if they cannot adapt and change. There are skills to learning how to adapt, and leaders who recognise and master those skills are more likely to be effective.

What are the five essential ingredients for good leadership?

I co-wrote The Leadership Code: Five Rules To Lead By where we synthesised what effective leaders know and do into five domains:

• Strategist: have a point of view about the future and allocate resources to that point of view

• Executor: be able to get things done as promised on time and within budget

• Talent manager: managing people today by coaching and communicating with them

• Human capital developer: invest in people tomorrow and build for the future

• Personal proficiency: build personal trust through managing your personal intellectual, social, emotional, physical and spiritual characteristics.

What trends do you see in leadership?

I see a shift from leader to leadership. Leaders are top people in an organisation who set direction; leadership represents the cohort of leaders and encourages leadership from the bottom up. Leadership is not just about whether a leader is authentic or visionary or communicates well, but how those personal behaviours affect others.

How would you define talent?

As competence, commitment and contribution. Competence deals with the knowledge and skills of individuals today and tomorrow. Competence comes from bringing the right people into the organisation, moving them effectively through the organisation (training, development, performance management, career planning), and moving them out of the organisation (retention of the right people). Commitment deals with behavioural engagement and makes sure that employees are willing to work hard. This comes from an employee value proposition that employees who give more will get more back. Contribution deals with emotional engagement and helps employees find personal meaning and purpose from their work.

What can managers do to retain talent?

Talent retention increases when leaders simply ask good employees what the employee needs to do to stay in the company. My friend Beverly Kaye (a careers expert) calls this a “stay interview”, and it communicates to the employee that they matter. In addition, an employee needs an employee value proposition that works for him. An employee should publicly behave as if he is committed to the company, for example referring colleagues to work at the company or making public speeches about the company.

More than 275,000 jobs will be created regionally to service Dubai Expo 2020, according to the event’s preparatory committee. What are the main HR challenges the country faces?

The first relates to talent. If we create 275,000 jobs, how do we make sure we define what technical and cultural attributes will be required for people to succeed in those jobs? Talent considerations also should be given to local talent versus expats. Second, culture is the pattern of how work is done within a company. Leaders should pay attention to getting the right culture in place that determines in part who is hired, but also what they do and how they work when they are hired. Finally, leadership matters since employees will do what their leaders do.

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