How Do We Develop Future Leaders?

Good leadership is pivotal for the success of any organization. It goes beyond simply managing; it’s also about inspiring and guiding employees towards achieving shared goals. Effective leaders are able to motivate their teams and promote a culture of innovation, collaboration, and resilience. Good leaders also prioritize the development of their employees, recognizing and utilizing the strengths of individuals to garner a maximized team performance.

For the continued success of NTT Group, we take the task of developing future leaders very seriously; we’re always searching for people who can embody the Group’s values and promote sustained growth and competitiveness. We recently spoke to three NTT DATA Inc. executives about how they go about the task. Here’s what they shared with us.

Victoria Ward, Senior Vice President, Human Resources Europe, NTT DATA Inc.

At NTT we have always promoted a culture of continuous learning and improvement. From new leaders to those who have already advanced to senior and executive roles, developing and nurturing leadership capabilities involves targeted strategies and practices.

We have built an environment of constructive feedback, support, and guidance to help our leaders understand their strengths and areas for growth. We keep updated with industry trends, look for opportunities to develop new skills and partner with world renowned institutions. Programs such as our “Fast Track” encourage virtual and face-to-face collaboration and teamwork among future leaders to help them develop valuable interpersonal and teamwork skills.

We always keep an eye out for individuals who show exceptional leadership qualities, and our Global Advanced Leadership Development program (GALDP) concentrates on developing strategic and critical thinking skills, communication and collaboration abilities, and offers challenging projects that allow leaders to develop and gain valuable experience working across a global organisation.

We are committed to investing in the development of our leaders and in return we expect them to lead by example, prove key leadership qualities and inspire and guide the future of NTT.

Roberto Del Corno, Senior Vice President – Sales, Europe, NTT DATA Inc.

Top performers are easy to identify, as they consistently deliver great measurable results as individual contributors. But great performers and great potential leaders may not match; in fact, they indeed very often don’t.

Potential leaders have qualities like communication skills, flexibility, ambition, humility, a sense of ownership and high emotional intelligence that allow them to consistently understand what the company needs at any given time, then deliver it by influencing, inspiring and enabling others to perform to the best of their ability.

Identifying potential leaders is an ongoing process delivered through accurate succession planning and structured development programs. Training is an obvious requirement, yet ongoing coaching and mentoring are even more fundamental steps. Future leaders need to have a broader understanding of the Group, hence they have to be exposed to business areas outside of their current remit as well as being involved in complex projects with executive visibility. Constant constructive and honest feedback is key to this process. They need to be empowered and also given the chance to fail in a protected environment, because failure is one of the best sources of learning for a great leader.

Jin Takami, Director - Corporate Administration Sector, NTT DATA Inc.

NTT Group's future leaders would be required to make business decisions on a global level. For that, we need to develop global management personnel who can respond to a wide variety of values and work styles in a highly diverse environment with multinational members.

To achieve that, it would be effective to broaden our perspectives through work experience outside our home countries, cultivate the mindsets of leading businesses and organizations across borders, and promote cross-group business.

This initiative is required for all employees from NTT Group regardless of nationality, but it is essential that each employee accepts and respects their differences and has a willingness to learn from each other. That’s easier said than done, of course!

Once the members with diverse backgrounds, experiences, and personalities work together as "ONE TEAM," we will be able to accomplish something that would be impossible to do when only similar personalities are working together.

Placing the right members in the right places globally with NTT Group's highly diverse and vast resources and having global management leaders who can manage teams will be extremely important in realizing NTT Group's global strategy.