Management
You do not recognise leaders by what they say. You recognize a leader by their behavior.
Competency 1: Leadership
About the competency that determines how someone translates goals into direction, collaboration and responsibility.
In this article
A familiar workplace situation
Two team managers have comparable experience and professional expertise. In one team, employees know what takes priority, discuss mistakes and take responsibility. In the other, decisions remain unresolved, tensions are avoided and employees wait for instructions.
The difference is not the job title, but the behaviour. The first manager clarifies expectations, listens to signals, sets boundaries where necessary and creates space where possible. The second manager has formal authority, but provides too little direction for collective action.
Leadership becomes visible in what happens to people, decisions and results when someone exercises influence.
What is leadership?
In Nieuwenhuis’s competency model, leadership is a behavioural competency that can be expressed at operational, tactical and strategic level (Nieuwenhuis, 2010). It concerns directing effort, influencing collaboration and taking or distributing responsibility.
Operational leadership focuses on day-to-day direction, tasks, quality and results. Tactical leadership connects people, teams and interests over a longer period. Strategic leadership defines a course, anticipates developments and connects people to goals whose outcomes are not yet fully known.
The levels do not form a hierarchy. They differ in time horizon, complexity and distance from execution. A production team may primarily need operational clarity, whereas organisation-wide change requires tactical alignment and strategic direction.
Leadership therefore includes task-oriented, relational and change-oriented behaviour. Task-oriented behaviour clarifies goals, roles and progress. Relational behaviour supports trust, motivation and collaboration. Change-oriented behaviour helps challenge existing assumptions and develop new direction. The competency does not lie in a fixed preference for one form, but in recognising what the situation requires and influencing others responsibly.
Role, skill or behavioural competency?
A role confers formal responsibility, a skill is a learned ability and a behavioural competency describes how someone applies knowledge, attitude and skills in a specific context.
Role
A team leader or director has the authority to make decisions, but the position does not reveal how that person exercises influence.
Skill
Conducting conversations, planning and delegating are learnable skills that support leadership behaviour.
Behavioural competency
Leadership emerges from the combination of choosing direction, engaging others, managing tension and monitoring results.
This is why someone without a management position can demonstrate leadership in a project or crisis, while someone with a leadership title may struggle to create trust or momentum. Mintzberg (1973) also showed that managerial work comprises a range of interpersonal, informational and decision-making roles. A title alone therefore does not predict the behaviour required in practice.
Scientific foundation
Leadership literature generally views leadership as a process of social influence. Northouse (2021) describes how an individual influences a group to achieve a common goal. Yukl and Gardner (2020) also emphasise creating a shared understanding of what needs to be done and supporting individual and collective effort.
This process perspective explains why effective leadership requires more than one fixed style. Direct guidance may be necessary when safety or continuity is under pressure. In complex collaboration, alignment, participation and conflict skills become more important. For long-term change, a leader must be able to interpret uncertainty, define a course and create meaning.
Katz (1955) made a comparable distinction between the management skills required at different levels. Close to execution, technical and interpersonal skills carry considerable weight; as responsibility broadens, conceptual thinking becomes more important. Nieuwenhuis translates this distinction into recognisable behaviour at three levels.
Leadership can also be developed. Practice-based research from Google re:Work shows that effective managers coach, listen, communicate clearly, focus on results and support development. McCauley, Van Velsor and Ruderman (2010) describe leadership development as an interaction between challenge, assessment and support. Experience only becomes a learning opportunity when someone receives feedback and can practise new behaviour.
Meta-analytic research supports the idea that different forms of behaviour have different effects. Transformational behaviour and consistently rewarding agreed performance are both associated with effectiveness and satisfaction, whereas passive leadership is negatively associated with these outcomes (Judge & Piccolo, 2004). The contrast between inspiring and directing is therefore too simplistic: teams need both meaning and clear reciprocity.
For workplace well-being, the mechanism is particularly important. Leaders influence well-being through job design, support, autonomy, fairness and the way they manage demands and change. Inceoglu et al. (2018) warn against reducing well-being to job satisfaction or treating it merely as a means to improve performance. Good leadership therefore considers not only what people achieve, but also the psychological and social conditions under which they achieve it.
A meta-analysis of leadership training found positive effects on reactions, learning, behavioural transfer and results. Programmes work better when they are based on a needs analysis, combine several learning methods, distribute practice over time and organise feedback (Lacerenza et al., 2017). Development therefore requires more than a standalone course: people must be able to apply and monitor new behaviour in the workplace.
Why this competency has such an impact
Leadership affects not only results, but also motivation, collaboration, innovation, job satisfaction and employee retention. The quality of day-to-day direction partly determines how much clarity, trust and freedom to act people experience.
According to Gallup, managers account for a substantial share of the differences in employee engagement between teams (Harter & Mann, 2015).
Of employers identify leadership and social influence as a core skill for today’s workforce (World Economic Forum, 2025).
Of employees worldwide were engaged at work in 2024, following a decrease of two percentage points (Gallup, 2025).
Leadership shapes how people experience their work
Leaders influence the everyday conditions under which people perform: priorities, autonomy, role clarity, feedback, decision-making and the way mistakes are handled. This influence is not limited to managers. Project leaders, coordinators and professionals without formal authority also shape how collaboration and responsibility are experienced.
- Good leaders make expectations and choices explicit.
- They create space where possible and provide direction where necessary.
- They connect feedback to learning, quality and responsibility.
Leadership influences psychological safety
Teams learn faster when people can discuss questions, concerns and mistakes without expecting humiliation or rejection (Edmondson, 1999). A leader shapes this norm through their response to dissent, uncertainty and bad news. Openness does not mean that everything is without consequence; it means learning and accountability can exist side by side.
Leadership shapes how teams collaborate
A leader helps determine how much autonomy people experience, how responsibilities are distributed, how conflicts are addressed and how decisions are made. Clear operational guidance prevents ambiguity, tactical alignment prevents teams from obstructing each other and strategic direction connects separate efforts to a common goal.
The impact therefore extends beyond the individual team. McKinsey & Company (2023) positions leadership as part of organisational health, which is associated with sustained performance. Leadership is therefore both a behavioural competency and an organisational condition.
Leadership can also be demanding. Someone who continually solves every problem personally, postpones conflict or fails to translate a course into execution increases dependency and tension. This competency therefore affects not only results, but also the capacity to learn and the well-being of both leader and team.
The three levels of leadership
Leadership is not the same in every situation.
Sometimes leadership requires direct guidance: clarifying what needs to happen, allocating tasks and ensuring that the work gets done.
Sometimes leadership requires alignment: connecting interests, resolving tensions and monitoring progress over a longer period.
And sometimes leadership requires direction: looking ahead, defining goals and engaging people in a future that is not yet fully visible.
Nieuwenhuis distinguishes these forms as operational, tactical and strategic leadership. The appropriate level depends on the role, situation and time horizon, not on status.
Operational
Operational leadership means allocating work, making expectations explicit, monitoring quality and progress and holding people accountable for their behaviour and results. Its main strength is clarity: the team knows what is needed and who is responsible for what.
The pitfall is excessive control. A leader who solves every problem personally or focuses mainly on tasks makes the team dependent and restricts development.
At the start of a shift, a team leader in a production environment discusses priorities, allocates tasks based on experience and intervenes immediately when quality deviates from the standard. Afterwards, the leader asks the team to analyse how a recurrence can be prevented.
Tactical
Tactical leadership focuses on alignment between people, teams and interests. The leader safeguards coherence and progress, resolves tensions constructively and translates organisational goals into choices for several functions. Its main strength is connection without losing sight of results.
The pitfall is endless consultation. Someone who wants everyone to be fully on board before making a decision may postpone necessary choices.
When introducing a new customer process, a department manager connects sales’ need for speed, IT’s requirement for stability and operations’ concerns about feasibility. She brings the conflict into the open, defines shared criteria and then records a decision.
Strategic
Strategic leadership means connecting developments inside and outside the organisation to a long-term course. The leader sets direction, makes uncertainty manageable and helps people understand the contribution expected of them. Its main strength is giving meaning to change.
The pitfall is abstraction. An inspiring vision loses credibility when priorities, resources and day-to-day choices do not change with it.
A director expects artificial intelligence to transform the organisation’s services. Rather than purchasing technology immediately, she first determines which customer value should be central, involves employees, reserves time for development and translates the course into specific investment decisions.
The three levels reinforce one another
Operational guidance makes strategy executable, tactical alignment connects organisational units and strategic direction prevents teams from responding only to today’s urgency.
Someone who leads exclusively at operational level may postpone looking ahead. Someone who primarily connects at tactical level may delay decisions. Someone who thinks only strategically may lose touch with day-to-day reality. Effective leadership therefore requires the ability to shift to the level a situation demands.
Development does not mean that everyone must become a strategic leader. It means recognising one’s preferred level, understanding its consequences and deliberately adding behaviour that is currently missing.
Effective use starts with the right match
Not every strong professional fits the same leadership role. An execution-focused environment may need rapid prioritisation and consistent follow-up. A change programme is more likely to require alignment between competing interests. An executive role demands the ability to set a course under uncertainty.
Research into person-job fit and person-organisation fit shows that alignment between an individual and the work environment is associated with job satisfaction, engagement, performance and intention to leave, although the strength of these relationships varies by outcome (Kristof-Brown et al., 2005).
The relevant question is not only whether someone can lead, but which leadership behaviour the role, team and context require.
A leader with strong operational capability may struggle in a role with considerable ambiguity and little direct control over execution. A strategically strong leader may cause frustration in a highly operational context when day-to-day clarity is lacking. Matching prevents a natural strength from being interpreted as a weakness simply because it is being applied in the wrong setting.
Why organisations often misjudge this competency
In selection and promotion, leadership is often inferred from job titles, years of service, professional performance or confident presentation. These indicators say something about experience and visibility, but little about how someone responds when interests collide, results fall short or a team challenges them.
Charisma is not a reliable summary of leadership quality either. Kouzes and Posner (2023) instead emphasise observable practices such as showing direction, enabling others and modelling the expected behaviour. Quiet professionals can be strong in these areas, while persuasive speakers may struggle to listen, delegate or follow through.
A second assessment error is automatically valuing strategic behaviour more highly. The competency levels describe different contexts. Operational acuity may be decisive for a shift supervisor, while tactical connection is more central to a programme manager.
Reliable assessment requires specific situations, observable behaviour and demonstrable effects, supplemented by multiple perspectives where possible.
Demand for leadership is increasing
According to the Future of Jobs Report 2025, leadership and social influence are among the core skills employers consider important towards 2030. Technological change, geopolitical uncertainty and shifting labour markets are increasing the need for people who can provide direction, organise collaboration and develop talent (World Economic Forum, 2025).
Of the employers surveyed, 61% identify leadership and social influence as a core skill. Compared with the 2023 edition, the share that considers this skill essential rose by 22 percentage points. At the same time, the report expects 39% of existing skills to change or become outdated by 2030. Leadership therefore also means organising learning while the nature of work itself is changing.
At the same time, leadership quality is under pressure. Gallup reported that global employee engagement fell from 23% to 21% in 2024 and linked this decline primarily to managers (Gallup, 2025). The Global Leadership Forecast 2025, based on 10,796 leaders and 2,185 HR professionals, also identifies leadership development and succession as urgent organisational challenges (Development Dimensions International, 2025).
Technology does not make leadership less relevant. As routine tasks disappear and work requires more judgement, learning and collaboration, clear frameworks, psychological safety and meaningful direction become increasingly important.
European organisations are also translating this need into observable competencies. The management framework of the General Secretariat of the Council of the European Union combines strategic thinking with leading people, empowering employees, being accountable and using resources sustainably (General Secretariat of the Council, 2024). This confirms that modern leadership requires not only vision, but also execution, integrity and stewardship of organisational capacity.
An example: from profile to development direction
Suppose a profile primarily shows operational leadership behaviour. This person creates structure, turns decisions into concrete action and intervenes quickly when results deviate from expectations. Tactical and strategic behaviour is less prominent.
This pattern is not a deficiency. It may be an excellent fit for an environment in which quality, safety and day-to-day continuity are central. In a broader management role, however, a development question emerges: how can this person involve different interests earlier, delegate responsibility further and reserve time for developments beyond operations?
Personal patterns add further meaning. Strong results orientation can support rapid follow-up, but listening and empathy are needed to understand resistance. Strong vision can reinforce direction, but decisiveness and planning and organising determine whether the course becomes executable. Resilience affects how much space a leader continues to give others under pressure.
The distribution should be read relationally. A high operational score does not mean that someone is unable to act tactically or strategically, but that direct guidance is likely to become visible sooner or more naturally. Low scores only become development needs when the role genuinely requires that behaviour. Personality patterns can then help form hypotheses about motivation or stress responses; they are not explanations in themselves.
The way someone learns also shapes the development route. An action-oriented professional can practise tactical behaviour in a project involving several stakeholders. Someone who learns primarily through analysis and reflection can strengthen decision-making by defining criteria beforehand and evaluating effects with others afterwards. The aim is not to match a learning activity to one fixed type, but to increase opportunities for practice, feedback and transfer.
A profile does not predict a fixed leadership type. It helps explore what comes naturally, which behaviour is less visible and what a particular role additionally requires.
What this means for organisations
For recruitment, assessment starts with a precise role analysis. Which level is needed, in which situations and with what intended effect? A structured interview can ask candidates to describe how they set priorities, handled challenge, resolved a conflict between teams or translated a long-term goal into execution.
For talent development, promotion based on professional performance is not enough. Organisations must clarify the transition someone is expected to make: from delivering personally to enabling others to perform, from one team to multiple interests, or from known objectives to direction under uncertainty.
Development works best when challenge, feedback and support come together (McCauley et al., 2010). Examples include temporary project responsibility, guidance from an experienced leader, employee feedback and reflection on specific decisions. This connects growth to behaviour rather than to a generic leadership course.
Day et al. (2014) distinguish between developing the individual leader and developing collective leadership capacity. Coaching and self-awareness strengthen an individual’s ability to act; shared language, relationships and mutual trust determine whether an organisation can maintain direction without one dominant leader. For HR, this means that development must strengthen both individual competencies and collaboration and decision-making.
Measuring impact is an integral part of this process. What matters is not how positively a programme is rated, but whether behaviour changes and what effect this has on the team. Organisations can identify several critical situations in advance and then use employee feedback, observation and performance data to assess whether someone genuinely prioritises, delegates, handles conflict or translates direction differently.
For executives, leadership is also a systemic issue. Succession planning, role design, decision-making and organisational culture determine which behaviour is rewarded. An organisation that asks for autonomy but punishes mistakes, or demands collaboration while rewarding only individual results, undermines the leadership it claims to need.
How Voice Your Future makes this competency visible
Voice Your Future considers leadership as part of a broader behavioural profile. The distribution across operational, tactical and strategic levels reveals where someone’s natural attention and influence lie.
Its meaning emerges in connection with other competencies. Decisiveness and results orientation support the translation of direction into action. Listening, empathy and collaboration help build support and psychological safety. Vision, environmental awareness and organisational awareness support the connection between day-to-day choices and the wider context.
A score only becomes meaningful when it is connected to a role, situation, observable behaviour, effect and development direction.
This shifts the assessment from “is this person a leader?” to three more useful questions: how does someone naturally provide direction, in which context does that behaviour work well and what additional behaviour does the next step require?
The essence of leadership
Leadership is the process of influencing collective effort by organising direction, alignment and responsibility.
At operational level, it means creating clarity in day-to-day work. At tactical level, it means connecting people, teams and interests. At strategic level, it means setting a course and giving meaning to change.
Its strength lies not in one ideal style, but in the match between person, behaviour and context. Self-awareness reveals what someone naturally relies on; development adds the behaviour required by broader or different responsibilities.
Leadership is revealed not by the title someone holds, but by the direction, space and momentum their behaviour creates.
References
This page is based on literature from organisational psychology, leadership studies, HRM and applied research into leadership, employee experience and organisational development.
Day, D. V., Fleenor, J. W., Atwater, L. E., Sturm, R. E., & McKee, R. A. (2014). Advances in leader and leadership development: A review of 25 years of research and theory. The Leadership Quarterly, 25(1), 63-82. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2013.11.004
Development Dimensions International. (2025). Global Leadership Forecast 2025.
Edmondson, A. C. (1999). Psychological safety and learning behavior in work teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(2), 350-383.
Gallup. (2025). Global engagement falls for the second time since 2009. Gallup.
General Secretariat of the Council. (2024). Competency framework for managers. Council of the European Union.
Google re:Work. (n.d.). Following the data: The research behind great managers. Google. https://rework.withgoogle.com/intl/en/guides/following-the-data-the-research-behind-great-managers
Harter, J., & Mann, A. (2015). The worldwide employee engagement crisis. Gallup.
Inceoglu, I., Thomas, G., Chu, C., Plans, D., & Gerbasi, A. (2018). Leadership behavior and employee well-being: An integrated review and a future research agenda. The Leadership Quarterly, 29(1), 179-202. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2017.12.006
Judge, T. A., & Piccolo, R. F. (2004). Transformational and transactional leadership: A meta-analytic test of their relative validity. Journal of Applied Psychology, 89(5), 755-768. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.89.5.755
Katz, R. L. (1955). Skills of an effective administrator. Harvard Business Review, 33(1), 33-42.
Kouzes, J. M., & Posner, B. Z. (2023). The leadership challenge (7th ed.). Wiley.
Kristof-Brown, A. L., Zimmerman, R. D., & Johnson, E. C. (2005). Consequences of individuals’ fit at work: A meta-analysis of person-job, person-organization, person-group, and person-supervisor fit. Personnel Psychology, 58(2), 281-342.
Lacerenza, C. N., Reyes, D. L., Marlow, S. L., Joseph, D. L., & Salas, E. (2017). Leadership training design, delivery, and implementation: A meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 102(12), 1686-1718. https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0000241
McCauley, C. D., Van Velsor, E., & Ruderman, M. N. (2010). The Center for Creative Leadership handbook of leadership development (3rd ed.). Jossey-Bass.
McKinsey & Company. (2023). Organizational Health Index: Organizational health is still the key to long-term performance.
Mintzberg, H. (1973). The nature of managerial work. Harper & Row.
Nieuwenhuis, M. A. (2010). The Art of Management. Deel 2 (10th revised ed., pp. 71-98). Uitgeverij Lulu.
Northouse, P. G. (2021). Leadership: Theory and practice (9th ed.). SAGE Publications.
World Economic Forum. (2025). The Future of Jobs Report 2025.
Yukl, G. A., & Gardner, W. L. (2020). Leadership in organizations (9th ed.). Pearson.
