How to Use SIGMA’s Leadership Competency Development Guides

Hello, my name is Dr. Arieana Thompson, and I’m a senior consultant at SIGMA Assessment Systems. My background is in industrial organizational psychology, and I have experienced consulting in leadership development, organizational culture, and succession planning. Today, I’m going to be talking about SIGMA’s resource, Leadership Competency Development Guides.

This can be found under our SIGMA website Resources tab, and you can scroll down to Leadership Competency Development Guides, and it will take you to this page. These are competency guides that have been developed for our 50 leadership competencies in our leadership model. This is associated with our Leadership Skills Profile-Revised assessment, otherwise known as our LSP-R.

What is the LSP-R?

The LSP-R is a personality-based self-assessment of leadership skills. It measures 50 leadership competencies and provides a comprehensive report with tips and templates for creating a leadership development plan. So, in other words, based on our 50-competency model, we have guides for each individual leadership competency.

How to Find Available Handouts

So, as you can see here, we have a leadership competency of achievement and motivation, an associated handout of how to develop achievement and motivation. Please note that we will be continuing to build up content in this area, so always check back to see if your desired competency has an associated resource.

Emotional Control

For the purposes of this tutorial, we’ll be looking at the competency of emotional control. So, if we were to click on the handout for Emotional Control, we would be taken to this PDF guide. All of our competencies will have a similar style of development. So first we’ll define competency, in this case, Emotional Control. And emotional control is the ability to maintain personal composure during times of stress or pressure, when things are uncertain, or when faced with a conflict or disagreement.

And did you know that research shows that leaders who heavily suppress their emotions are less satisfied in their work, more likely to want to leave their organization, and can have a negative impact on the work of their direct reports? So clearly, it’s imperative that we all work on our emotional control in the workplace.

Methods for Developing Emotional Control

To support emotional control, we have a number of development activities that fall into the methods of on-the-job learning, coaching, self-directed learning, and group training.

On-the-Job Learning

For example, to develop emotional control in on-the-job learning, you can learn how to name your emotions and also allow them to be fully experienced in the body, and then let them pass instead of engaging in emotional suppression. Similarly, when responding to a stressful event, you can learn how to pause and give yourself a moment to notice your reaction and can take all perspectives into consideration before reacting and responding to any incident. Another example is practicing mindfulness, such as conscious breathing or guided meditation, and these have been shown to be powerful tools in supporting emotional regulation. So that’s just a few examples of on-the-job learning, although we have more presented here.

Coaching

The next method is coaching. You can pair with an executive coach to work on your emotional intelligence, such as learning how to understand and manage your emotions, engaging in role-play, discussing emotional responses, or even taking an emotional intelligence assessment, which SIGMA does offer if anyone is interested.

Self-Directed Learning

One could also engage in self-directed learning, such as leveraging physical activity as a tool for stress management, such as taking a midday walk to support emotional well-being.

Group Training

Lastly, organizations could consider to provide group training to support emotional control, for example, through an emotional intelligence workshop, peer support groups, or conflict resolution training. SIGMA also provides a number of additional resources for competency development. Our leadership series pairs well with competency development, and the associated guide for this competency would be Great Leaders Have Emotional Control, so I encourage you to check that out.

Develop Your Leadership Competencies with SIGMA

We also have articles, books, videos, and podcasts recommendations for further learning and development. Additionally, SIGMA can help. If you don’t know how you score on leadership competencies, such as emotional control, you can take our Leadership Skills Profile-Revised assessment, again, otherwise known as our LSP-R. You could reach out to SIGMA to learn more about our high-potential talent development offerings and discover SIGMA’s scientifically validated and industry-tested tools. Lastly, we could pair you with a SIGMA consultant and coach to participate in one-on-one coaching with SIGMA’s experts. If you’re interested in any of these services, please don’t hesitate to reach out to Glenn, and we’d love to continue the conversation.

Thank you so much for your time today. I hope that this has been a helpful tutorial in learning more about this resource, and that you will consider it for future competency development needs. Thanks so much and have a wonderful day.