Develop leaders who are decidedly better than average.

Develop leaders and managers who are decidedly better than average.

Surviving a heart attack, making a bundle of money – either is enough to get most people thinking deeply about what they want to do with the rest of their lives. One even had a reason to feel twice as deep as the rest of us. He had recovered nicely from a heart attack he had suffered a few years earlier in Switzerland and had made more money on stock trading than he knew how to spend.

“I was young enough to have a new career,” he told me; he was 52 years old at that time. “I thought I might find a job elsewhere where I could develop young people's leadership attitudes, behaviour, and skills.”

But his CEO thought otherwise. He felt it was better if he stayed on and made himself responsible for developing the company's next generation of leaders. He acted and offered him prompt to be the head of People Processes, focusing on senior and junior Leadership Development as CHRO; “Create the world’s leading executive development program.”

The CEO felt intensely that the company's 40-year record of double-digit growth since the end of WWII was in jeopardy without high-energy leaders who broadly could grow people and expand the business simultaneously. It was also necessary for a different reason. A strange budget attitude had slowly sneaked in over the past years. Although the top executives all agreed on needing more talent, they took their time to respond. Indeed, they routinely saved half or more of their money earmarked for leadership development and used it to fatten year-end profits! The board had criticized the CEO for not spending the decided leadership development funds and argued passionately that the top executives missed the opportunity to build the company's future.

The newly appointed CHRO took charge and invited us for a two-hour meeting to make him selves ready to determine who was qualified to train the company’s leaders.

The agenda to prepare for the two-hour session was to clarify the company's “Strategic Intent” behind the project and the vendors' leadership and training philosophy. Furthermore, present a persuasive track record of the most potent leadership character traits they have trained, and why? The opening question for the preparation of the meeting:

“Can your company develop leaders?”

1. Do your trainers have the insight and the experience to train leadership?
2. Does your company have the capacity to train 300 young leaders during the next two years?
3. Does your company have vulnerable role models as Trainers and Coaches?
4. Can your trainers energize others as they learn?
5. Can your trainers blend our company's soft and hard skills?
6. Can your trainers mix a learning program with real business projects?
7. Do your trainers have the insight and experience to build teams and train them to become Second to None??

To answer these questions, we presented and left behind a paper. The discussions around these points were relatively straightforward and lasted approximately one hour. Then the CHRO raised the most crucial and intriguing question, which we were supposed to answer on the spot, with no preparation.

"How can we develop Leaders and Managers who are decidedly better than average?" ...

I would like to continue the answer next week.