Differentiating competence and competency: definitional and conceptual issues

The reviews of the competency approach to leadership and leadership development point out the varied and interchangeable usage of the terms competence and competency (Bolden et al, 2006; Burgoyne, 1993; Grezda, 2005;

Hoffman, 1999; Holton & Lynham, 2000; Winterton, 2009). This appears to follow from the varied competency approaches within the literature and in

20 Homogenous could also mean that where the competencies are differentiated there is an overarching coherence or shared underlying or substantive grounding.

21 As Holton (2000) states, Prahalad and Hamel proposed the concept, core competencies of organisations, for understanding an individual organisation’s competitive advantage. It refers to the “collective learning in the organization especially how to coordinate diverse production skills and integrate multiple streams of technologies … core competency does not diminish with use, competencies are enhanced as they are applied and shared” (italics added, Prahalad and Hamel quoted in Horton, 2000, p309).

practice, which means the “terms “competence” and “competency” are attributed multiple meanings depending on the context and perspective advocated” (Garavan et al, 2001, p149). Attempts at clarifying the terms tend to define ‘competence’ as performance standards to be achieved; that is, “standards of quality of performance” (Hoffman, 1999, p277) or “what a person needs to know and be able to do in order to undertake the tasks associated with a particular occupation”

(Winterton, 2009, p684). This does not necessarily mean that the person will actually perform or undertake the tasks (Carmichael & Stacey, 2006; Carmichael

& Sutherland, 2005).

Although varied, the competency conceptualisation of, and approaches to, management and leadership development appear to be grounded or located within

“a rationalistic and positivistic” (Garavan et al, 2001, p146) perspective of management theory and practice and neo-liberal market ideology (Bolden &

Gosling, 2006; Brundrett, 2000; Caroll, Levy & Richmond, 2008; Sandberg, 2000). This means a narrowed, behaviourist and objectivist conceptual focus that delimits management and leadership, including the development thereof, to observable and measurable individual behaviour (Finch-Lees, Mabey, &

Liefooghe, 2005). The implicit methodological individualism accords observable individual behaviour causal primacy and assumes that an individual’s behaviour is directly and causally related to improved job and organisational performance (Caroll et al, 2008). These imply reductionist, decontextualised and universalistic assumptions of, and perspectives on, management and leadership. This means it reduces and reifies management and leadership to components of an individual’s behaviour without due consideration of other levels of analysis, their dynamic interrelations, and the organisational and social context. In this way it may also hold essentialist assumptions regarding management and leadership development.

Apart from the varied usage of the terms competence and competency, there also appears to be the interchangeable usage of the terms or conceptual slippage with their usage as if synonymous. This means that competence and competency (or competencies in plural form) are conceptualised as (1) an indicator (of underlying

attribute or characteristic); (2) an output (of underlying attribute or characteristic);

and (3) as a subset of input to performance (constituent element of the underlying attribute or characteristic). The result is that it unintentionally or inevitably is conceived as both an independent and dependent variable or as an input and output with regard to managerial or leadership performance. As Le Deist et al (2005) explains, there is the “difficulty of using competence as an overarching term as well as specific one” (italics added, p29) and that tautologies in definitions can arise.

Burgoyne (1993) states that there is the “issue of whether competence is an attribute of the external performance of a person in a task context, or in some ways represents some cluster of traits within the person, and how all these things are integrated” (italics and bold added, p8). He adds that there “appears to be a kind of “sleight of hand” […] in which externally defined performance competence descriptions seem to turn into skill-type personal characteristics [or competency or competencies] as learning objectives” (italics and bold added, ibid). One could illustrate these conceptual difficulties with a heuristic diagram below:

Figure 2: Conceptual difficulties with competence, behavioural competencies and performance (compiled by author)

effective work or job performance behavioural

competencies underlying characteristic

or competency

output output or input?

input

competence?

The conceptual equivalence and ambiguity regarding competence, competency and competencies can lead to a form of ‘list approach’ to management and leadership development without conceptual clarification of how competency and competence are related (Burgoyne, 1993; Raelin, 2004). This means the development of individual competencies by varied and applicable methods, which it is assumed will lead to competence or effective performance in the management or leadership role. Where the organisational context is given consideration there appears to be a restrictive conceptualisation of the context as a finite set of decision situations or situational variables to which the applicable managerial and leadership competencies are matched. This means a contingency relation between the competencies and context, which provides a more elaborate and sophisticated model as illustrated in Figure 3 below, but one based on behaviourist and objectivist perspective.

Figure 3: Relations between competence, behavioural competencies, context and performance (compiled by author)

At an individual level the acquisition and additive model of development may not capture the complexity and dynamics within the individual, as suggested in the research on executive derailment or dysfunction (Bolden et al, 2006). This means that “excessively high levels of a [supposed] ‘beneficial’ competency [or competencies]” (p153) may be a hindrance rather than facilitator or cause of effective managerial and leadership performance or functioning. The executive

effective work or job performance behavioural

competencies underlying characteristic

or competency

context

derailment or dysfunction also suggests the complexity and dynamics between the individual and his or her relational and organisational context.

2.5.3 Differentiating and aligning management, leadership and executive