How Great Leaders are Made!

The Current Situation

The world of business might be shrinking geographically, but not in its complexity. The rapid growth of globalization is disrupting markets, increasing competition, and threatening our limited sense of security. To survive and prosper, organizations will need to provide better LEADERSHIP. While competitors may easily copy your products and services, it is difficult for them to copy your LEADERSHIP.

A recent poll of employees shows that 50% do not trust their leaders. In another recent research study, we found the tendency for executives to be unaware of the negative feelings that their subordinates have about them. These numbers suggest that we have a long way to go to improve the quality of our leadership practices.

It is disheartening to see and hear of leadership development programs solely through modular classroom efforts and needs analysis which maybe toward typical weakness approach to development. Our research shows that it is strengths that make great leaders not the absence of weaknesses. A weaknesses may not be the same as a fatal flaw which must be fixed right away. In a traditional classroom setting; theory and modules can pose some issues and get thinking started, but - in this area, at least - it cannot change behavior. By and large the issue is over-focusing development resources on classroom-based training instead of leveraging multiple learning channels and enabling learner application.  You could not make someone a leader by teaching them modules in any area alone… At least in changing behavior a modular only approach may be way too shallow in our view.

The other point here is that if people seek to be great leaders, it behooves them to know which behavioral competencies really make a difference in their organisation. The reason for this is countless people who were successful in an organisation switch to another and then fail.

The Way Forward..

If changes are going to be made in the behavior of a leader, if trust is to be developed, if risk taking is to flourish, the leader must be placed in a different experience. He should be helped to: (a)    Benchmark himself on the desired leadership competencies so that he can look at its true impact; (b)    Deepen leader awareness of himself and the insights from leadership experience; (c) Provide enablement to help him avoid relapse with work based application activities in manageable steps that are self-directed and use reminders to become a professional “nag”.

Scientists worldwide have conducted scores of studies since the 1993 publication of a landmark paper by Anders Ericsson that indicate that natural talent is not a prerequisite to great leadership. The first major conclusion is that nobody is great without work. It's nice to believe that if you find the field where you're naturally gifted, you'll be great from day one, but it doesn't happen. There's no evidence of high-level performance without experience or practice hence the need for Leadership Development Experience (LDE) we bring to your people.

The Benefits..

The relationship between performance outcomes and leadership performance is not incremental (e.g., sometimes it takes substantial change in leadership performance to impact the outcome). Superior leaders produce better results, and superior leaders can provide the contemporary organization with an added competitive edge.

The data we have strongly suggests that if you can improve leadership effectiveness, you have a 38% probability of seeing that improvement translate into higher business performance. Since 38% is well beyond most companies’ profit margin, developing effective leaders clearly deserves investment now. Better leadership can generate a 10 to 29% improvement in customer satisfaction scores and a corresponding increase in revenue growth. Less-than-optimal leadership practices cost the typical organization an amount equal to 7% of their total annual sales. At least 9% and possibly as much as 32% of an organization’s voluntary turnover can be avoided through better leadership skills. Most organizations are operating with a 5% to 10% productivity drag that better leadership practices could eliminate.

Lets get started...

Leadership matters! Great leaders have an impact on the performance and competitiveness of their firm. Start Now from anywhere, any country! Would your organisation benefit from Leadership Development?

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