HR Leadership: Capability vs. Expertise

I’ve had this HR gig for a long time – even longer considering I don’t even really like HR. Actually, what I don’t like are the conversations others are having about us and the conversations we have amongst ourselves.​

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Others say we can’t solve business problems, we don’t have the language of the business or we are stuck in an administrative support mindset. And we believe them! Our conversations are woeful and lost. We need to stop that right now and start speaking with pride about our profession and applauding our accomplishments.

We need to step up our leadership game.

Whether we are preparing a workforce succession strategic plan, developing an innovative approach to increase veteran hiring, analyzing workforce trends to identify recruitment and retention hot spots, digging into big data or making progress on the diversity front, skills alone are never enough.

Organizational leaders want more than capability. They want expertise. They are waiting for us to speak from our position as expert, offer points of view and challenge assumptions. It's integral to HR competency.

Pick a day, any day, and welcome to our world as HR leaders. As chief human capital officers, human resource directors, EEO managers or brand new human resource  generalists, we are expected to advise, identify risk and recommend.  Focusing on the technical aspects of the job alone will not get us to where we need to go to impact organizational performance.

Our work puts us at the center of the action where we are perfectly poised to lead. I challenge you to up your leadership game. Are you up for the challenge?