Attributes of an HR Leader August 27th, 2009

Sean Conrad

I recently read two great articles over at Human Resources IQ on the attributes that HR leaders should have in order to positively impact their organizations. Both are well worth a read, and I wanted to share some of the key takeaways with you in today’s post.

The first, Braveheart HR: Attributes of a Transformative HR Leader by Jason Lauritsen, discusses how HR is at a crossroads and to break free of the administrative role, HR needs a new model for HR leadership. I cannot agree more! Unfortunately, many organizations relegate HR to a tactical and administrative role responsible for “personnel”, instead of a strategic function that impacts the organization’s overall performance. Using the William Wallace character from the movie Braveheart as an example, Lauritsen outlines the leadership characteristics HR needs to have to get to the next level. While it’s an apt analogy, I’m going to skip over the Mel Gibson wears a kilt talk, and get right to the characteristics HR leaders need to truly have an impact on their organization: passion, purpose and courage. All of these traits aren’t necessarily going to be required skills on your next performance review, but without these it will be difficult to transform the way HR is viewed and valued in your organization.

Take for example the characteristic of purpose. Lauritsen shares his opinion that a lot of HR professionals’ purpose is to ‘not rock the boat’. To be competitive, organizations need the leg up that a strong HR and talent management strategy can give them, and HR professionals need to lead this vision. Without purpose, there’s not going to be the authority and motivation required for HR to be sitting at the board room table.

Speaking of the old board room table, Mike Grogan’s piece The Seat of Knowledge: Competencies for the New Human Resources Leader looks at this ongoing discussion. Grogan does a great job of explaining some of the key issues about whether or not HR has a seat at the table. As he explains:

It would be a mistake to personalize the decision, making it only about the human resources representative’s sense of prestige and/or self-worth. Instead, it seems more powerful to treat this decision as a matter of language and culture. More specifically, does the executive team fully understand and appreciate the language of human resources and how its areas of expertise (recruiting, hiring, retention, succession planning, performance management, compensation and change management, to name a few) are deeply connected to and impacted by every business decision? Likewise, does the human resources executive fully appreciate and understand the language and daily challenges of the other functional areas, including finance, sales, marketing and operations?

It’s interesting that Grogan acknowledges that getting the seat at the table is a two-way street, and it’s about more than just making sure executives understand the value HR brings. HR professionals need to fully understand how the rest of the organization works to have credibility. Grogan outlines three things every HR professional needs to have to get the seat at the table – financial knowledge, product industry knowledge, and functional knowledge. As he points out, it’s not acceptable for HR to say “I don’t do numbers” and then expect to be sitting at the table when the discussion is all about financials. For industry and product knowledge, there needs to be a strong enough understanding of the industry and how it connects with key HR areas like compensation. In the category of functional areas, a good understanding of all areas including sales, marketing and operations is important so HR has a good handle on the big picture.

Based on both of these posts, it’s clear that being a strong HR leader is about a whole lot more than having HR skills and competencies. Being a leader takes a strong mix of tangible knowledge and often harder to measure characteristics. Regardless of how your organization treats HR and whether or not you have the magical seat, this tangible knowledge and the harder to define characteristics above only serve to make you a stronger leader in the long run.

Tags: competency management, HR, performance management, talent management