Are Leadership Competencies Enough? (03/10/2026)

Spring Forward, Don’t Fall Back

For those who move to daylight savings time, I hope you did what the title implies – otherwise you have likely had a couple of confusing days. But I’m not writing about the Daylight Savings Time debate, or the pain of changing all the manual clocks in your house.

I’m talking about your mindset.

Because if you aren’t springing forward, you are likely falling back.

I don’t need to tell you that the world is changing.

But you may need to hear and act on the corollary to that fact: in a world that is changing, there are implications if you aren’t changing.

Maybe there are things about yourself and your approach that you intentionally don’t want to change. That is your prerogative.

The choice to change or to stand pat is yours.

But realize that if you don’t consciously choose, you are automatically leaning into your auto-responses, experience and habits. And all of those, while valuable, are rooted in the past, when the world, in some increasingly important ways, is different.

Not everything in the world is changing. But what is matters. As a leader you are expected and paid to look forward. And so as long as you carry that responsibility, remember that if you aren’t springing forward, you are likely falling back.

Are Leadership Competencies Enough?

There is plenty of conversation including from me last week about the importance and value of leadership competencies to organizations. The problem isn’t in the value of leadership competencies. The problem is thinking that is all an organization needs to define the leaders they want and want to grow.

To answer the question in the title – no, leadership competencies are not enough.

Important, but not enough

Because skills/competencies aren’t all we need from our leaders.

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