Toward a New Curriculum of Leadership Competencies: Advances in Motivation Science Call for Rethinking Leadership Development

Leadership competencies are designed to equip leaders with the knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics, required to effectively lead people toward the achievement of organizational goals. However, advances in motivation science, specifically the development of self-determination theory, suggest that many current leadership competency models contain outdated approaches to motivation that undermine their intended purpose of leadership effectiveness. New motivation leadership competencies grounded in self-determination theory are recommended to promote leadership behaviors that support people’s psychological needs. These foundational competencies take advantage of compelling motivation research to provide a filtering mechanism for culling outdated competencies proven to undermine effective performance, but also provide the basis for congruent leadership skills that promote flourishing in the workplace. Human resource development (HRD) practitioners will benefit from the rationale and recommendations for introducing a new set of competencies based on self-determination theory into their leadership development efforts. While executives or leaders in the team and organizational contexts will appreciate the consideration of expanding or rethinking their own leader behaviors, the new competencies are most relevant for leaders of individual contributors in the one-to-one context