12 the shortcomings of this initial definition. Upon review of updated literature and the public comments, the task force adopted a definition closer to cultural competence, while adding important anti-racist language, adopting a definition of: Demonstrate the awareness, attitude, knowledge, and skills required to equitably engage and include people from different local and global cultures. Engage in anti-racist practices that actively challenge the systems, structures, and policies of racism. Leadership Just as colleges pride themselves on developing the leaders of the future, employers seek to hire them. Though employers tend to rate the importance of leadership as least important of the eight competencies for early career hires, still 65% of employers rated it as a very-to-extremely important competency in candidates (NACE Recruiting Benchmarks, 2022). In fact, more employers now believe the competency is important, compared with the first time they were surveyed on this competency in 2015, when only 56% cited it as very or extremely important. Even in entry-level positions, recent graduates work in teams in which they may act in some situational type of leadership capacity, though they may not serve as primary leaders in general. Nonetheless, learning leadership skills in college can set graduates on a path to career advancement, where they learn to manage innovation, change, and how to develop team members’ skills. Casner-Lotto, Rosenblum, and Wright (2006) defined leadership as: “Leverag[ing] the strengths of others to achieve common goals; us[ing] interpersonal skills to coach and develop others” (p. 16). The NACE task force adopted a similar leadership competency, not mentioning the interpersonal skills referenced above, to reduce the inherent overlap these competencies have with each other. The task force adopted this revised definition: Recognize and capitalize on personal and team strengths to achieve organizational goals. Professionalism Professionalism has long been a hallmark of an important workplace competency; OCTAE includes it under their conception of personal qualities. ETS includes it in their model as initiative and being a good workplace citizen. Casner-Lotto, Rosenblum, and Wright (2006) defined professionalism/work ethic as the ability to “demonstrate personal accountability, effective work habits, e.g., punctuality, working productively with others, and time and workload management” (p. 16). Given the different yet similar approaches, professionalism proves squirrelly to define.
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