Advances in leadership: a competence framework for professional leaders

The organizations of Plena inclusion and many others of the Third Sector are promoting an organizational change because people’s orientation and social transformation imply a deeply reform in the culture, the processes and the structure of each organization. The exercise of an adequate leadership is critical to assure a successful change. For this reason, Plena inclusión has started a process to develop the leadership skills needed to manage the change in the people who lead the organizations and their services. A competency framework has been developed for these people with the help of a team from the universities of Valencia and Valladolid. It will be the basis for a future postgraduate program. Two work sessions were held, one with managers and the other with technical staff expert in organizational processes, to identify key competences and training needs. The final result is a framework of competences of professional leaders organized in three dimensions –knowledge, skills and attitudes– and five levels: personal competences, related to people, to teams, to the organization and to the environment. This framework is the basis for organizing the learning and training systems necessary to train the professional leaders that Plena inclusion wants and needs.