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The Darrell D. Friedman Institute for
Professional Development at the Weinberg Center
Below is a list of the essential skills determined by DFI that make up the competencies required in Jewish communal service to meet minimal standards of job performance. These competencies transcend any one particular area of Jewish communal service – they are portable and productive – and can help professionals understand work related expectations and achieve successful employment. While these core competencies form the basis for successful practice, the process of attaining them at the highest levels develops over time as professionals grow and mature in the work place.
General Professional Competencies
1. Conceptual Skills (ability to analyze issues and formulate solutions)
Critical thinking
Decision making
Priority setting
Problem solving
Strategic thinking
2. Communication Skills (ability to convey and promote ideas both written and orally)
Business writing – memos, email, minutes, letters, reports, evaluations
Communicating with diplomacy, tact, and credibility
Conducting effective meetings
Conflict management
Difficult conversations
Effective listening and body language
Grant writing
Marketing effectively; developing a plan, websites, serving as board ambassadors
Public relations
Public speaking – presentations to small and large groups, presenting a D’var Torah
3. Organizational Skills (ability to manage time and prioritize and complete job tasks)
Event planning
Prioritizing
Program planning and evaluation
Stress Management
Time Management
4. Inter- and Intra-personal Skills (ability to understand self and role visa versa clients/supervisors and supervises/colleagues; ability to understand organizational culture and the politics within the larger organization)
Board work
Creating a culture of trust
Customer Service
Delegation
Gaining confidence (listening, saying no, communicating persuasively)
Lay/Pro committee work
Lay/Pro relationship – the partnership, contracting
Leadership styles
Leadership succession
Managing up
Meeting management
Mentoring and coaching
Organizational culture
Situational leadership/styles
Supervision – assessing, motivating, delegating
Team building
Transitioning from staff to supervisor
5. Management and Administrative Skills (ability to manage a program or service; requires basic knowledge of budgeting, planning, programming, lay/pro relations; exposure to areas such as facilities/building management; financial resource development; human resource development; fiduciary responsibilities)
Budgeting and finance
Change management
Creative problem solving
Decision making
Facilities management
Fiduciary responsibilities
Fundraising readiness and solicitation
Lay/Pro - Board training
Lay/Pro - Leadership succession
Meeting management
Program planning and evaluation
Program priorities
Safe hiring, managing, and firing practices
Strategic planning
Jewish Professional Competencies
1. Willingness and ability to explore one’s own evolving Jewish identity
2. Demonstrated sensitivity to and ability to work within a diverse Jewish population
3. Understanding of the Jewish value orientation of one’s institutional setting (the Jewish lens through which the organization functions)
4. Understanding of one’s Jewish community (social structure, points of connection/disconnection, personalities, culture, issues and tensions)
5. Understanding of the contemporary Jewish world and the world at large (role of and relationship with Israel, contemporary Jewish values, roles of and relationships among Jewish institutions)
Denominational differences
Disagreement and debate
Ethical dilemmas in the workplace
Israel related issue – partnership, politically, diversity, religious issues
Jewish customs
Jewish nonprofits – changes; current issues
Jewish values
Judaism 101 – basics to holidays, lifecycles, organizations
Privacy and confidentiality
Social Justice – What is a Jewish issue?
Text – leadership skills and styles
The Jewish Community at large – at home and abroad
The organized Baltimore Jewish community
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