Page 202 - HBR Leader's Handbook: Make an Impact, Inspire Your Organization, and Get to the Next Level

Leading Yourself 191

Somewhat more tangible than character, but less visible than style and
habits, is knowledge: the understanding—of facts, technical infor- mation,
industry context, and drivers of performance—that you gain through life
and work experience or more formal study. Knowledge is usually passively
held in your mind, whereas skills are more hands-on, reflecting how you
apply knowledge in practice. For example, as a medi- cal student, you can
have the knowledge to do heart surgery—understand how the organ is
structured, the patterns that indicate health or disease, and so on—but the
skills to work as a cardiologist lie in how you wield the scalpel, make the
right kind of incisions, or take emergency action if things go wrong.
In business, you can acquire a lot of knowledge through study, ob-
servation, or storytelling by others, but you might still lack the analogous
skills to put such knowledge into action. For example, in strategy making,
you might have learned lots of different frameworks in business school,
but you can’t really claim to be skilled at the practice unless you’ve led a
strategy-development process and had to make and live with the kind of
tough choices it demands. As you self-assess your knowledge and skills as
a leader, remember the differences between those and be honest in evalu-
ating how good or not so good you are at each.
The practices we’ve introduced in the previous chapters require certain
knowledge and skills to perform well. In table 6-1, we summarize some of
the most important. The list is a good starting point, but you can add to it
as you reflect on your own organizational and developmental context. You
can use this rubric as a basis for your self-assessment as you consider your
relative strengths and gaps.
Many of the skills and knowledge listed will apply to more than one of
the core practices; others will weave through all of them, like emotional
intelligence, communications and influence skills, general knowledge of
business and the industry you work in, relevant trends shaping competi-
tion for your company, and so on. Develop a list of knowledge and skills you
think are most important for success in your job and then use that to start
assessing what you have, what you lack, and what you need to strengthen
or build upon.