By ETH, for ETH
“Acting responsibly”, “Driving innovation”, “Building bridges”, “Nurturing well-being”, “Living inclusivity”, “Enabling people”: these are the new social and leadership competencies that will be part of ETH employees’ university work from now on. Read on to find out how this came about, why competencies are important and how they differ from the new ETH values.
Let’s start with the basics: What even are social and leadership competencies? A combination of knowledge, abilities and attitudes, these competencies relate to interpersonal behaviour. They can be observed in everyday situations, they can be measured – and what’s especially important for their application: they can be acquired if they are not yet sufficiently established. In a community, social and leadership competencies provide structure, offer orientation in terms of personal development and create a common language and shared expectations.
What do we need all that for?
Julia Dannath, Vice President for Personnel Development and Leadership (VPPL), explains why social and leadership competencies are important for ETH Zurich: “As a university, we have the privilege of attracting the best researchers and technical and administrative staff as well as the most talented students from all over the world. However, this also comes with certain expectations of ETH as an institution as well as a high degree of diversity. That means we have a duty to continuously improve and develop our culture so as to make all members of the ETH community feel comfortable and to inspire top performance. The new social and leadership competencies are intended to enable a collective understanding at our university of what type of interpersonal behaviour we want to foster and what good leadership looks like.”
Distinction to the ETH Competence Framework for Teaching
ETH has not only defined a set of competences to be strived for when it comes to how we work together, but also for teaching: The ETH Competence Framework describes the competencies that ETH Zurich aims to promote among its students. It is intended to ensure that students are future-ready, by strengthening their transferable competencies (i.e., method-specific, personal and social) together with their subject-specific competencies.
Reaching the goal together
A common understanding of this kind, which makes the new competencies come alive in everyday situations, promises a variety of benefits, as Sara van Leeuwen from VPPL explains: “These competencies can have a variety of positive effects, for instance on employees’ mental and physical health. They can also improve interactions among staff and reduce friction. This has the potential to unleash resources for teaching, research and administration at ETH Zurich, as well as for our innovative strength and all our other activities. What’s crucial to bear in mind, however, is that these competencies can only take full effect if all ETH employees actually live by them and apply them.”
ETH Zurich’s new social and leadership competencies are the result of a joint effort. In a total of 23 workshops, representatives of all university groups helped develop these competencies under the supervision of the Vice Presidency for Personnel Development and Leadership. “In other words, the competencies were developed by ETH, for ETH,” Dannath says. “And that was important. After all, social and leadership competencies don’t just concern one particular group or only leadership personnel, but all employees.”
A logical network
To develop these new competencies, the latest research results and leadership models were consulted in addition to the results of the workshops. The work also took into account ETH Zurich’s strategy, vision and mission. The new ETH Zurich values – responsibility, ingenuity, openness, respect, inclusion and empowerment – also play an important role when it comes to these competencies, as van Leeuwen explains: “All these elements taken together form a kind of ‘logical network’: the mission describes the institution’s raison d’être, the strategy lays out the path to realising our vision, and the competencies and the value culture ensure that we as ETH Zurich march in the chosen direction together.”
Bringing the competencies to life
After an intense development phase, it’s now time to implement the competencies. The goal is to bring them to life by firmly establishing them in employees’ day-to-day work life. They will, for example, play a central role in HR processes such as job interviews, feedback sessions and development interviews with new professors. There are also plans for a variety of workshops, e-learning programmes and events. “What’s important and desirable, though, is that these competencies should not be implemented by VPPL alone, but by other departments, divisions, teams and individuals as well,” van Leeuwen says. “Because to be able to continuously develop and improve our competencies, we need everyone at ETH to do their bit.”
Find out more about the new competencies
The new social and leadership competencies were also mentioned at the Executive Board’s New Year’s town hall meeting on 17 January 2023. To find out more, you can watch the recording of the event.
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