SMS Competency - Strategic Capability and Leadership

This is one of eleven competences that appear in the SMS Competency Framework for senior managers in South Africa's Public Service. All these competences are viewed as being critical for high performance in the senior manager’s role. The eleven competences are:

1. Strategic Capability and Leadership;
2. Programme and Project Management;
3. Financial Management;
4. Change Management;
5. Knowledge Management;
6. Service Delivery Innovation;
7. Problem Solving and Analysis;
8. People Management and Empowerment;
9. Client Orientation and Customer Focus;
10. Communication;
11. Honesty and Integrity;

Competency definition

Must be able to provide a vision, set the direction for the organisation and inspire others in order to deliver on the organisational mandate

Proficiency level

Basic

• Understands organisational and departmental strategic initiatives, but weak in inspiring others to achieve the set objectives;
• Describes how specific tasks link to organisation’s strategies, but experiences difficulty in putting the links into practice;
• Aligns and prioritises own action plans to organisational strategies but has limited influence in determining the strategic direction; and
• Demonstrates commitment through actions.

Competent

• Gives direction to team in realising the organisation’s strategic objectives;
• Impacts positively on team morale, sense of belonging and participation;
• Develops action plans to execute strategic initiatives;
• Assists in defining performance measures to evaluate the success of strategies;
• Identifies and communicates obstacles to executing specific strategies;
• Supports stakeholders in achieving their goals;
• Inspires staff with own behaviour - “walks the talk”;
• Manages and takes calculated risks;
• Communicates strategic plan to the organisation; and
• Utilises strategic planning methods and tools.

Advanced

• Evaluates all activities to determine value added and alignment with the organisation’s strategic goals.
• Displays and contributes in-depth knowledge to strategic planning at the organisational level;
• Ensures alignment of strategies across various functional areas to the organisation strategy;
• Defines performance measures to evaluate the success of organisation’s strategy;
• Monitors and reviews strategic plans consistently and takes corrective action to keep plans on track in light of new challenges in the environment;
• Promotes organisation’s mission and vision to all relevant stakeholders;
• Empowers others to deal with complex and ambiguous situations;
• Achieves agreement or consensus in an adversarial environment;
• Guides the organisation through complexity and uncertainty of vision;
• Leads and unites diverse workgroups across divisions to achieve organisational objectives; and
• Develops and implements risk management.

Expert

• Structures and positions the organisation to Government priorities;
• Develops and implements strategies for the organisation utilising in-depth knowledge of customers and clients, the conventions, changing trends, processes and constitutional framework of the Government;
• Holds self accountable for executing the strategy;
• Builds and maintains a wide network of internal and external relationships to gain confidence, trust and respect from others;
• Sought out as a leader who can motivate others to achieve a common goal;
• Creates loyalty, comradeship and an organisation environment that permits innovative thinking; and
• Develops strategic planning methods and tools.

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Copyright RSA Department of Public Service and Administration: SMS Handbook - Chapter 5: Competency Framework (2003).

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External Links

Department of Public Service and Administration (DPSA), Republic of South Africa