FOR CEOS: HOW TO SUCCESSFULLY DEVELOP YOUR LEADERSHIP TALENT

In recent weeks, I’ve been talking about the growing crisis of leadership, as I see it. Today, I want to explore a bit further on what the possible prescription might be for what I believe is a fairly significant issue and challenge ahead. This is particularly true if you are in a CEO role and have a wide-reaching responsibility to deliver, not just to your customers and your board, but also the people within your organisation.

To highlight a couple of relevant areas of concern. We’re seeing more and more that there are leaders being promoted to the next level role who are a little, or a lot, under-prepared or under-experienced for those roles. This puts them under pressure from day one.

Why is that happening?

One key contributor is the succession plans in organisations are less robust than they were a few years ago, and they were not terribly good at that point in time. So the ability to have someone ready?—?skilled up, capable, experienced, and confident?—?ready to step into a role, all of the leadership roles across the organisation?—?is at a fairly low ebb at the moment.

This highlights the critical need to be focused on the development of individual leaders and your overall leadership talent and talent pipeline to support succession. And also to support the pursuit of opportunities for your organisation. Consider that you may need new and different leadership roles to take advantage of the new and different opportunities that are arising in your industry, organisation, and economy. How do you fill these new and different leadership roles without a robust talent pipeline?

But investing and focusing on the development of leadership and leadership capability to create a more robust leadership talent pipeline is only going to give you good return if a couple of key elements are established first. I believe these are critical and often overlooked factors when leaders say that ‘yes, we are developing our leaders’.

Let me talk to these factors. As well as raising the importance of CEOs recognising they can, and should, be a driving force in establishing both of these critical elements, in the pursuit of developing leadership and developing the leadership talent pipeline.

1. EXPECTATIONS FOR LEADERSHIP

There needs to be crystal clear expectations. Expectations of leaders in their roles. What is expected of them? Not just in execution and delivery, also in leadership. And the need for leaders to be absolutely clear on, and understand, these expectations.

I find so often that the expectations, firstly, are unclear or ambiguous, secondly, are not well communicated, and thirdly, there is no checking for understanding and making sure that the individual leader truly understands what the expectation is. What the measurement of success against the expectation is. This needs to become very clear to everyone.

How can CEOs lead and role model this?

Firstly, they need to be very clear about the expectation of themselves in their roles.

• What does the board expect from them?
• What do the shareholders expect from them?
• What do the employees expect from them?

Get this really, really clear and distilled into the primary expectations.

The second thing a CEO can do is to be very clear about setting, agreeing and communicating the expectations for each of their executive team members. Their own direct reports. Going through this exact process of establishing the expectations, communicating and agreeing the expectations, and checking for understanding with each of their individual executive team members.

This is leadership role modelling.

This lays the first foundation factor for effective leadership development. Set the expectation for each leader in their individual role and as members of their respective leadership team, whether it’s the executive team, the senior leadership team, the leadership team.

2. ACCOUNTABILITY FOR LEARNING

Now, the second part, again often overlooked, is that individuals in their leadership roles need to take accountability for their own leadership and professional development. Without this personal accountability, any leadership development is not going to be nearly as effective as it might be.

How many times has there been a less than expected outcome or progress from a development initiative for your leaders?

The objective here is to move from an accountability model where sole accountability for leadership development outcomes rests with, for example, people and culture or organisational development, and to an accountability model where each individual has accountability for their own leadership development and learning outcomes. The individual must have skin in the game. They need to be involved in setting their own learning outcomes, how this will be measured, and the commitment they are going to make to achieving those things.

Then when you invest in your people’s growth, and offer learning opportunities and support, you have a much higher chance of a much better outcome from this learning, and of your leaders progressing further in their leadership development learning journey. Consequently, this leads to improved contributions in terms of the potential difference they make and impact they have, both in their individual role as part of a leadership team and in leading their team in that team’s contribution to the organisation.

Again, CEOs can be the role model in terms of how they set up learning and support opportunities for their own executive direct reports and build this accountability into the whole framework and process of investing in people. ? Whether this investment is money, resources, or time, it is premised on personal responsibility and accountability for their own learning. Without this you may be compromising the effectiveness of any leadership development, and therefore the outcome and impact that it can have on your organisation, on your leadership talent pipeline, on their capability to deliver in role, on the succession plan.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I think 2025 is going to be a critical year in setting you and your organisation up for success for the next decade. So getting this right, this leadership development foundation right, is really important.

The two things for your to consider.

• Getting those expectations in place, clear, communicated, agreed and understood.
• Really developing the accountability for personal and professional development in each individual in your leadership cohort.

I’d love to know your thoughts.

Are you in the middle of leadership development planning for 2025?

I’ll be in:

• Gold Coast, 20th November
• Brisbane, 21st November
• Sunshine Coast, 22nd November
• Sydney, 27th November
• London, 12th?—?13th December

If you’re interested in catching up, let’s book it in.

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Focused on future proofing CEOs, Dr Stacey Ashley CSP is often described as the leader for leaders. With over 30 years’ experience, Stacey has helped 1000’s to develop their leadership competence, confidence and credibility. With 14 international Stevie awards, Stacey has been named twice in LinkedIn’s Top Voices. The author of six Amazon #1 best selling books on leadership, Stacey has a talent for translating complex concepts into simple and practical ideas for immediate application.

She typically speaks at conferences, develops leadership strategy and programs, consults, and coaches.

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