Perhaps the most important "Big Skill" is leadership.

It certainly is the Big Skill to which I have put the most personal research, captured in the below diagram from page 9 0f this Learning Circuits article (email me if you want a copy of the chart as a nice powerpoint slide, quite small filesize-wise, and where everything is actually readable).

Leadership is the ability to get people to do the right work. Leadership connects actions to results, and sometimes even changes the metrics of success.

The challenge of over-simplifying leadership can be summarized in this typical example.

Many organizations in their leadership mission say they value innovation. But do they mean/measure/reward:

• Individuals coming up with a new idea?

• Groups creating an atmosphere where new ideas, even bad new ideas, are activly sought and met with serious consideration?

• Groups actually implementing new ways of doing things?

• Groups actively sacrificing some level of optimal short term productivity for the sake of innovation?

How does your organization teach/nurture/identify leadership? And how does it define it?

By the way, this past post has a chart that shows how I believe most organizations roll out leadership training, and perhaps most Big Skills.