Why leadership frameworks are nearly useless

A comment on a post by Victoria Repa

The hard truth to swallow:

If you're a great professional in your specialty, that might not be enough. 👇 There are 5 types of skill sets depending on the breadth and depth of knowledge and skills: 1) I-shaped: Deep expertise in one area but may lack versatility. 2) T-shaped: Expertise in one area with broad skills across disciplines. 3)…

Read the original on LinkedIn

I like the differentiated view on typical competence configurations related to memorable letter shapes from Victoria Repa 👍

▶️ I-shaped: Deep expertise in one area but may lack versatility.
▶️T-shaped: Expertise in one area with broad skills across disciplines.
▶️M-shaped: Expertise across multiple specialties for versatile adaptability.
▶️V-shaped: Excel in two complementary areas, bridging gaps between disciplines.
----------------------------------------------------------
✅ X-shaped: Deep expertise with leadership skills for diverse team management.

The X-shape evidently sticks out though. Becoming a leader is a critical yet difficult jump.

The best salesperson isn’t automatically the best “Head of Sales” only because he’s been the best salesperson. We all know this, nothing new.

Then the reasoning goes: It’s a new set of skills that needs to be (and can be) learned. As if only skill acquisition makes a good leader.

⚠ While this might be true for certain individuals, most people need to work on deeper layers of their personality like
✅ self-image
✅ self-worth
✅ beliefs
✅ attitudes
✅ faith & trust

and often need a substantial upgrade in authenticity, self-awareness and inner independence. 🆙

In other words, it has to do with inner growth and transformation.

And these are often intense, long (and sometimes painful) introspective processes to uncover blind spots, autopilots, cognitive biases, rigidities, fear based dogmas or limits, to define new behaviors and then to continuously test and adjust them in the daily leadership routine.

⛔ Learning about leadership styles or attending a soft-skills training doesn’t cut it.

Learning isn’t Change and Change isn’t Transformation.

💡If you want to become excellent to lead others then first become excellent in leading yourself (the same btw. applies to healing).

Authentic Leadership competence is a direct outcome of a high degree of self-mastery. Inner clarity precedes outer results.

True leaders don’t study leadership frameworks and then emulate the prescribed character traits and behaviours (Outside in).

Instead, they understand their core essence, purpose, and mission, which they then authentically express (Inside out).

This inner authenticity and congruence naturally radiate outward, inspiring genuine belief and trust among their followers.

All perspectives Join the discussion on LinkedIn