Pro Bono Consulting Builds Global Leadership Competencies

Posted by Laura Asiala

Are leaders born or made? Why not both! But, if you don’t have the raw material, it can be tough to develop, and simply having leadership talent is insufficient. In many ways, leadership capability is a lot like physical strength. You may be born with the capacity for amazing physique, but unless you work out—stretching, strengthening, practicing—you will not gain the skill, strength, or finesse required to deliver winning performance.

Global pro bono, or international corporate volunteerism, is leadership bootcamp that builds capacity in a fast, efficient, and economical way. It’s a workout that exercises all kinds of leadership muscle, and builds the types of teams and people that leading multi-national corporations have identified as top talent requirements, often at a fraction of the cost of other approaches.

IBM’s Corporate Service Corps (CSC), which uses an approach first described in a 2009 Harvard Business School Case Study, has long been the pro bono volunteerism industry standard. Since its launch in 2008, nearly 1,500 IBMers have participated in CSC. The program is championed for its “triple win” that delivers benefit to the company from market insight and exposure, to the local client in the form of free consulting services, and to the employee, through leadership skill development.

But which leadership skills?

IBM identified seven key characteristics for a successful global leader that are linked to the company’s unique priorities for talents that enhance global virtual teams. As I reflected on the leadership development capacity of ICV, I wondered how those same characteristics might stack up against a leadership competency model that has been developed and verified by leadership development experts.

The Polaris® Global Leadership Competency model is a research-based model developed by Bruce Griffiths of Organization Systems International and Carolyn Feuiller that combines cultural intelligence, emotional intelligence, and organizational leadership. The Polaris model measures five dimensions of leadership—personal, social, global business, leadership, and cultural—exhibited through nineteen competencies, ten of which ICV accelerates or impacts.