Innovation in leadership dev. is lacking

What is really innovative in leadership development currently? We spend a lot of time talking about becoming more innovative as organisations and putting together programmes to develop innovation capability but how innovative is the programme itself? What is done differently from how it's been done in the past? What have you seen/read/experienced that made you sit up and take note? What had a significant impact on you as a leader? How did it have an impact? Why do you think it had an impact?

What is your opinion of current Leadership Development programmes in general? We know WHAT they SHOULD deliver, but how successful are they in reality? 

On a scale of 1-10, where 1 = Not Successful at all, and 10 = Highly Successful (e.g. it impacts and shifts the behaviour of the leader; it creates a safe environment where team members get work done in creative and productive ways, with significant impact on the bottom line) 

• What is your score? Perhaps you are the leadership dev. specialist or the L&D team that are delivering these programmes
• How would the leaders score the programme? 
• How would the team members score the impact of the leadership dev. programmes? Would they say things changed significantly for them? 

(Note: If you are able to score the leadership development programmes in your organisation as Highly Successful, I want to learn from you.) 

Skills development impact statistics show that: 

• 70% of learning is based on informal networks 
• 20% is based on experience 
• 10% is based on formal training 

If 70% of skills development is based on informal networks, would it be possible to be more deliberate in designing leadership development initiatives in such a way that we strengthen informal networks in our organisations? If only 10% is based on formal training, does this mean the formal training needs a rethink in the way it is designed and delivered? Or should we make peace with this as a fact and cut the budget on formal training programmes?

Innovation in learning techniques are lacking: In the State of Leadership report (2018) published by HBR, 80% of all respondents said that innovation is needed in learning techniques, indicating that there has been little improvement on this front in the past two years (this is up from 75% in the 2016 report).

With all the science we have at our disposal, in particular, the neuroscience of learning, why is this still the case?

Leadership development programmes are not effective. Only about 33% of respondents in the latest study HBR said that they have become much more effective as managers after taking part in development programs. 75% of the L&D executives in the survey said they recognise the need for some improvement in the programs they design, yet program effectiveness is clearly not improving 

We know that one of the best ways to learn is to teach - “While we teach, we learn.” Seneca. The learning pyramid, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_pyramid.

Should we not design leadership dev. programs in such a way that we expect them to teach what they learned to their teams and we give them the tools to teach with?

Some questions that keep me awake at night:

1. How do we convince organisations to be brave enough to make a leadership development programme leader centric? My view is that we should not design for leaders where we assume we know what they need – instead, we design with them, with the understanding that it will probably be a ‘programme’ that is ambiguous and messy and uncertain.
2. What if we use a meta-design thinking process where leaders design ‘safe-to-fail’ experiments which get tested, shared, measured for impact and everyone learns from everyone else?  The leader learns from: thinking in a purposeful manner, designing for what is contextually relevant to them and their teams?  The leaders in the system learn from each other and amplify what works and kill what does not work;  the team members are an active part of the process and feedback loop; and the L&D and leadership development teams focus on removing barriers to learning and put in place enablers for collective progress (they focus on ‘shaping the path’)?
3. How do we consider the system and context within which the leader needs to lead?  Not all models are applicable to all leaders.  The leader heading up the new business development team vs. the leader who has to lead the operational team, needs different skill sets.  BUT we can agree, that their behaviour as individuals will impact their teams in similar ways e.g. creating psychological safety and a sense of belonging.  Shifting behaviours and developing soft skills is not easy.  It involves irrational, feeling human beings.  We know creating new neural pathways requires dedicated, focussed, repeated attention and practice. It is called 'soft' skills but it is really 'hard' to develop. Leaders need to become vulnerable, reflect on actions and impact of actions and behaviours, take time to listen to feedback and respond to the feedback in a way that reinforces learning and trust within the team.
4. Leadership crisis? In South Africa I am currently seeing more people appointed into leadership positions who are technically very competent but emotionally not ready. This sets them up for failure.  Leaders are seen (and experienced) as being defensive, as bullies, emotionally immature and invincible (it doesn't matter what they do and how they behave - they are untouchable).  This does NOT mean it cannot be solved, but are we recognising that this is an issue and that we need to perhaps rethink exactly what is needed and how we can set these leaders up for success?
5. How do we identify which leaders need what input?  How do we move away from the approach where all leaders go on the same programme?  If we can invest the right amount of time and effort in the right people, we will see significant shifts. This accounts of course for all learning for all individuals. Just because it might be sensitive (e.g. we don't want individuals to feel they are being singled out) and perhaps not that easy to solve, does not mean it can’t be done.  We just have to think about it differently.

I will be exploring these and other such questions with a select group of thought leaders 19 March. You might want to join in on the session?

• Space is limited to 25 seats only (this ensures a deeper conversation). There are only 10 seats left
• Everyone must come prepared with a flip chart poster with some key insights/solutions/questions based on their own experience/research
• Everyone will present to everyone else.  We will use Café Style and do a round of 5 presentations at a time, after which we will do sensemaking within a predefined structure (What, So What, No What)
• All presentations will be recorded
• All output will be captured and you will receive all of it for further reflection after the workshop

It is an intensive day starting at 7 am and only ending at 7 pm (these times avoid us going into a second day.  Also, the last part of the day will tap into the neuroscience of creativity principles).

If you would like to talk to me about this, please connect via email:  [email protected]. I will share the formal design and pre-work with you

To book for the workshop, https://www.sensetosolve.com/leadership-session/