Leadership as a Core Competancy

Successful practitioners of leadership know that to be an excellent leader, one does not necessarily have to be individually better than the individual team members.  In fact, a leader’s functional superiority can sometimes hamper the success of the team.  The leader’s sole measure of success lies in the success of the team. It is only through acknowledgment, aggregation, and integration of individually superior skills within the team that the team wins and the leader, in turn, becomes successful. Leading a team of high-performers requires the leader to be a relationship-builder and a fanatic of transparent communication, not an expert or skilled master of the team’s assigned function.  Leadership is the most important competency of the leader, not demonstrated mastery of individual skills or possession of attributes related to team function.

 McChrystal Group