What are your best strategies for developing the next generation of leaders in your organization?

Leadership is manifest. It finds expression in actions, projects ant attitude and it automatically produces followers inside and outside the organizations. Identifying leaders in any group is fairly easy. Cultivating, motivating, growing and confirming them in diverse situations and environments is the difficult part of the job. Leaders emerge in many ways, for identifying them is enough to observe the group dynamics and to be ready to notice them and stop them when they want to leave.

Based on my experience, it is often possible to procure rough stones for cutting, but it requires a significant investment of time and attention. When crafting a comprehensive 100-day onboarding plan, the primary objective should be to identify individuals who have the potential to support and facilitate the attainment of strategic objectives. It is imperative that assessments of individuals be conducted in a manner that is free of any biases, as high-potential leaders may be overlooked due to repetitive tasks, a lack of appropriate mentoring, or inadequate support from previous managers. An effective leader should be able to delve deeper and uncover the rough diamonds that are hidden within the organization.

Look beyond the “obvious” is absolutely the right approach here. Encourage leadership skills and behaviours in everyone as everyone should be at least leading themselves and from there look for those who can lead others too. We often make the mistake of identifying a few people early on to develop rather than giving everyone similar opportunities to see what we all learn from that.

The potential leaders should also be fed the fundamental values of the democratic civilized society, organization, group or nation. Commitment, respect, loyalty, lessons learned from history, hope for a better future, altruism, honesty, seriousness, love for justice and mankind, professional deontology, legality, righteousness, family values and the sense of belonging should be of utmost importance for the potential future leaders, together with their education, strength and health.

In order to enhance the quality of these "rough diamonds", it is imperative to gain a comprehensive understanding of their motivations, needs, and desires of them. This understanding must extend beyond their professional milieu and, whenever it is possible, encompass their personal wishes as well. Strong and collaborative relationships create a foundation for growth and development, fostering an effective learning culture. By prioritizing collaboration, organizations can achieve a cohesive and effective workplace culture characterized by transparency and mutual support.

The best way to empower leaders is to have them work on complex projects that bring significant benefits to the business while exposing themselves to senior management. I have had several successful experiences empowering leadership when working on strengthening awareness of Lean Six Sigma methodologies at operational levels. Despite external training not yielding the results we desired, my strategy of establishing Lean ambassadors in production lines proved highly effective. We were able to spread awareness at all levels, significantly enhance the leadership skills of potential leaders, and boost motivation levels.

Leaders are part of they teams irrespective of their power, experience and influence. They do not exists as leaders outside their teams. Supporting potential leaders with the resources and guidance is important, but the recognition of their own team is the most important of all. The potential leaders must me taught to think as leaders only as a part of their teams that cannot succeed without they as they could never be able to succeed without their team.

Involving the current leaders of the group in educating a future potential leader is essential. Nobody knows everything, but it is proven true the fact that the more experienced a leader is, the more successful the organization/the group becomes. The current leaders of the organization/group are themselves important leaders of their teams. A potential future leader needs to learn how to be accepted by older generations leaders and still be an innovator at the same time.

Effective diversity and inclusion initiatives in the workplace require the involvement and collaboration of leaders at all levels. However, addressing organizational culture is a necessary first step. As executives, we know the importance of leadership and must prioritize diversity and inclusion efforts. Through my experience in managing complex logistics operations, I have observed that the continuous pressure to deliver results and optimize processes can sometimes cause operational leaders to overlook important aspects such as diversity and inclusion. For instance, investing time and resources in developing specific processes for people with special needs often takes a backseat. We always must lead by example more than words.

Bringing in and digesting high tech definitely is the most important part for the near future, hence the interest of the teenagers for the new IT and AI infrastructure. A future leader must use tolls of the future to build a future for the group/organization. At the same time, the young potential leader must constantly think the AI and IT are mere tools of the human and that that should stay that way.

Developing the next generation of leaders requires that we in current leadership roles take a deep dive into the soft skills. With AI and it’s ever increasing power to do monotonous and repetitive tasks. The leaders of today, must grow and help others grow in developing soft skills. Such as challenging conversations, emotional regulation, mental resiliency, critical thinking, collaborative problem solving and what I like to call invitational leadership. We must work on cultivating a generation of people-leaders, and I believe that is multi-faceted, first asking ourselves where we can grow in our soft skills and thus creating an environment where all around us can grow in this too.