In a survey of 2,187 CEOs and business leaders, the leadership consulting firm of Zenger Folkman identified "establishing stretch goals" as the No.1 competency gap among HR leaders. These leaders are spread across hundreds of different organizations with 68% located in the US, 11% in Asia, 8% in Europe, 7% in Latin America, 4% in Canada, and 1% in Africa.
Steve Rice, CHRO of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in Seattle, said:
“HR leaders can be overly risk averse to their own detriment. Fear drives mediocrity. It's necessary to take risks to move forward.”
After comparing an appraisal of leaders in the HR function with those of leaders in other functions, the data suggests that the typical HR leader is seen as six percentile points below average. HR seems to have become every manager and employee’s favorite corporate punch bag, competing with IT for the title of the most-irritating function.
The data was analyzed in two different ways. The results for the 2,187 HR leaders in the dataset was compared with those of 29,026 leaders in other functions. A few key skills that were common strengths of those in HR and also some that appeared as weaknesses were identified.
Generally speaking, one of the most positive areas for HR leaders was that they were very concerned about developing other staff. This separated them from leaders in other functions, who did not score highly on this skill. They also rated positively on providing coaching, acting as a mentor and giving feedback in a helpful way. The persons taking the survey were also asked to indicate the importance of each competency measured - they rated this skill eleventh of 16 for HR leaders. Therefore it could be that developing others is not taken as seriously as other competencies that are highly valued by the other functional leaders.
Areas where HR leaders scored higher than leaders in other functions were in building positive relationships, role modelling and having functional knowledge and expertise.
When comparing HR leaders to all other leaders they were not rated positively on their ability to understand the needs and concerns of customers. The function of HR appears to focus on internal problems - and the apparent lack of understanding of the external environment causes others to view some HR leaders as not in touch with the issues facing the organization.
Other weaknesses pinpointed were their inability to view the larger picture, focusing instead on the day-to-day issues and a general lack of speed and urgency to respond and react quickly to problems.
The survey did show, however, that HR leaders were among some of the best leaders in the world.
