The Difference Between Skill, Competence, and Professional Authority

Terms such as skill, competence, and professional authority are regularly interchanged in discussions within the security industry. The practitioners, employers, and even the regulatory bodies assume that once an individual has a certain skill, he or she is competent, and the possession of competence automatically confers professional authority.

Although this might seem logical on the surface, it fails to make critical distinctions that are vital for the growth of mature professions.

Professions that have already established themselves rarely equate these terms. There is a recognized distinction in medicine, engineering, and law that distinguishes having skills from being competent, and both are separate from professional authority.

As the security sector moves towards professionalization, this knowledge will become increasingly relevant.

In fact, the evolution of the profession in the future could be contingent not only upon enhancing capability but also recognizing how capabilities lead to competence, which in turn leads to professional authority.

Understanding the Difference Between Skill and Competence

Ability often turns out to be the most overt element of professional performance.

A security officer may be good at surveillance, have outstanding communication skills, be very experienced in investigations, or be able to manage conflicts successfully. These qualities are significant, and they tend to be essential in ensuring effectiveness in practice.

Still, having a skill does not guarantee that the individual is competent enough to discharge a professional task as a whole.

Competence means the capacity to use knowledge, skills, judgement and professional expertise consistently within a specific context.

An officer may be proficient in conducting surveillance. But this in no way implies that they are competent in designing an intelligence-based investigation, managing operations or assessing the risk exposure of the organization.

As such, competence goes well beyond technical ability.

What it requires is the application of knowledge, experience, professional judgment, ethical considerations, and situational understanding.

All these elements are understood well in any mature profession.

A surgeon may be outstanding in terms of technical skill, but competence in surgery involves many other things besides technical expertise, including analysis, decision-making, ethical consideration, communication, and accountability.

The same goes for security.

Why Competence Is More Than Experience

One of the biggest myths in the field of security concerns the idea that competence automatically follows from experience.

It goes without saying that experience does matter. Operations settings have the potential to foster situational awareness, good judgment, and professional confidence.

Nonetheless, having experience by itself does not necessarily mean having competence.

Two individuals working in a particular setting may share the same amount of time in their careers yet be vastly different in terms of professional competence.

The reason for that lies in the fact that competence is not about gaining experience; it is about developing professionally.

Professional competence is based on learning, self-reflection, education, development, and applying learned material in various scenarios.

Many fields understand this concept well enough to develop systems that allow for measuring professional competence in addition to years of service.

Progression is not defined solely by how long an individual was on the job but rather by his/her capabilities and education.

Security professionals rely on experience as a basis for competence even more than people in other industries do.

Competence Does Not Automatically Create Authority

Another important difference arises between competence and professional authority.

Whereas competence may have already been proved, there is no automatic assumption of authority.

Professional authority is associated with the recognized capacity for decision-making, judgement, and assuming responsibility in particular fields of practice.

Authority carries responsibilities.

The decisions taken by security practitioners have the potential to impact organizational functioning, safety issues, liability concerns, privacy considerations, reputation management, and risk management results.

As such, authority must be controlled.

Mature professions do not usually grant authority to individuals simply on the basis of competence.

Such authority is based on proven competence and recognized and authorized competence in particular professions.

A competent engineer does not necessarily enjoy authority to authorize infrastructure design plans.

Similarly, a competent solicitor does not necessarily enjoy all legal authority.

Nor does a competent medical practitioner necessarily enjoy all medical authority.

Authority, in other words, involves governance as much as competence.

Security practitioners face many of the same issues.

The Governance Function of Professional Authority

There is such a thing as professional authority in systems of accountability.

Professional accountability goes beyond being about deciding what person is competent enough to perform a certain task. The issue here is also about choosing which individual should be entrusted with responsibilities concerning decisions with further-reaching implications.

The matter grows evermore critical in light of the continuing expansion of the scope of security.

In a contemporary setting, security professionals might be expected to do things like:

• analyze intelligence information;
• evaluate behavioral risks;
• organize crisis management;
• maintain infrastructure resilience;
• administer surveillance technology; and,
• assist in strategic decision-making within an organization.

 

These responsibilities demand more than merely skills.

They call for competence.

Still, mere competence is not quite enough.

The existence of professional authority requires clear structures of responsibility, accountability, education, competence, and scope of practice.

Why These Distinctions Matter for Professionalisation

The security sector has traditionally been heavily focused on capability.

Capability is crucial for the professionalisation process but the profession also needs a better sense of how capability turns into professional responsibility.

The confusion between skill and competence leads to unreal expectations regarding the professionals.

The confusion between competence and authority leads to governance problems.

Both misunderstandings could result in lowered standards and difficulties in the design of career advancement processes.

The solution of mature professions is the use of clear-cut definitions for:

• skills versus competence,

• competence versus authority,

• authority versus jurisdiction.

With such clear definitions, professional responsibility could grow systematically rather than intuitively.

With increased complexity in security tasks, such definitions might be required.

Building Structured Professional Progression

Some of the effects of understanding these differences include the realization that professional development needs to be structured as a process rather than merely operational.

For instance, professionals normally start off developing basic skills.

These skills form the building blocks of their competencies.

The competencies enable them to take on increasingly greater responsibilities and accountability, ultimately leading to professional authority.

Such a process is not automatic, and it cannot happen without structure.

Educational progression, competence assessment, and governance need to be present for this to happen.

Otherwise, progress can become haphazard, being determined only by what happens within individual organizations.

Thus, structuring of progression processes is another aspect of professionalization.

Conclusion

Skill, competence, and professional authority are highly interconnected concepts but are not identical in meaning.

The concept of skill denotes capability.

The concept of competence denotes the integration of capability, knowledge, judgment, and professional understanding.

Professional authority refers to recognition and governance of competence within specific spheres of professional activity.

Mature professions are aware of this difference.

They do not equate skill with competence, neither competence with authority.

On the contrary, mature professions introduce mechanisms for linking these concepts through professional education, governance, accountability, and professional advancement.

Given the complexity that is developing in the field of security, the ability to distinguish skill, competence, and professional authority can become one of the primary criteria for further professional development.