Reliably Improve Leader Development
The task for Boards and CEOs is clear: To lead organisations that will outperform. As the success of organisations relies on effective leadership, and change is all around, it stands to reason that leadership development is a necessity. After all, in a fast-changing context, your organisation needs leader capabilities that develop continuously.
With this in mind, it is alarming that most leadership development initiatives are reported to have very low business value, and the problem has been getting worse.?
“Only 7 percent of CEOs believe their companies are building effective global leaders, and just 10 percent said that their leadership-development had clear business impact” [1]
“The good news is that organisations seem to recognise that there is a leadership crisis and are willing to invest resources to address it. The bad news is that despite a decade and a half of increased spending, the problem seems to be getting worse. This raises serious questions about the efficacy of leadership development, questions that go straight to the core of the (leader development) industry.” [2]
Fortunately, emerging research can guide us to better understand what is going wrong with leader development. Understanding these problems means you can avoid them when developing your leaders.
How Can You Learn From Failed Leader Development to Reliably Improve Your Leader’s Success?
Problem 1: Generic leader development interventions?utilise stereotypical leadership behaviours that are considered attractive or generally positive but don't meet specific individual or organisational needs.
Problem 2: Leadership development without properly defined impact measures?leads to unclear results and differing opinions of business value.
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Problem 3: Quick wins in leader development are an illusion. Focus on individual or organisational development activities that can be quickly and cheaply delivered, often called ‘sheep dipping’ e.g., one-off training workshops, ad-hoc digital modules, annual leadership team events, etc. will not lead to sustained leader development or performance improvement.
Conclusion
Addressing these common problems in leader development will create better results for your organisation, it’s leaders and your teams. Leader development must relate to specific changes that can be measured, are valuable to the individual and their followers and are realisable in the needed timeframe.?Through precisely tailored leader development interventions – that include systematic action plans and clear business impact measures – it is possible to develop leaders to perform in their new situation. As change is ever faster, leader development is ever more important. Getting leader development right for each leader in your organisation will accelerate – perhaps even define – your team’s success.
Whenever you need help our experts are at hand, delivering a proven science-based service that dramatically increases success in leader development – wherever in the world you need them.
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References?
[1] Claudio Feser, Nicolai Nielsen, and Michael Rennie “What’s missing in Leadership Development?”, McKinsey Quarterly, 2017, McKinsey.com
[2] Robert Kaiser and Gordon Curphy “Leadership development: The failure of an industry and the opportunity for consulting psychologists”, Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research, 2013, Vol. 65, No. 4, 294–302
Organisation Solutions Director
3 年A thought provoking read Richard Moore. I suspect that remote working practices over the past few years may prompt (at last!) organisation to rethink their approach to leadership development. Few large firms can honestly say that they take a long terms systemic view of developing their leaders. It could be argued that 'flatter' structures, collaboration platforms and the need to streamline costs have resulted in leadership development been relegated to the 'nice to do'. As we emerge from our cocoons and start to interact more in the workplace, perhaps we will see a renaissance in leadership development?
Steven Maasch | Senior Vice President Human Resources
3 年Coming at this from a different perspective, there’s a common approach in academics or even in many corporate settings, leadership is constantly talked about and taught in terms of the “what”, not “how”. Two principal areas a leader can influence when it comes to achieving results are the strategy (or plan) and the ability to execute the strategy. When we look at where to leaders struggle more, is it creating strategy or executing the strategy? Leaders I’ve worked with will almost without fail answer, “execution’ (the ‘how’). Also, those who have an MBA or taken business classes will attest that they study “strategy” (the ‘what’). It’s not surprising that the area with which so many leaders struggle most is also the one in which they have the least education.?At the risk of oversimplifying, once a leader decides ‘what’ to do, the challenge is in getting people to execute (the ‘how’) it at the level of operational excellence needed. Why is execution so difficult for so many leaders? After all, if the strategy (the ‘what’) is clear, and the leader is driving it, won’t the team naturally engage to achieve it? The answer is NO! And that’s another topic…
Chief Human Resource Officer | HR Transformation & HR Digitalization Leader | Expert in Organization Design, Talent Strategy, Organizational Culture, Performance Management and Organization Development |
3 年True That. It's ironical that despite knowing the problem, most of the efforts that atleast I have come across are still being made in the tangential direction. It's like Abraham Maslow said " If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail". Over the years, we have created these unwarranted paradigms and have for the lack of a better word " isolated and segregated" the development charter, keeping the CEO' and Boards out of scope... Cherry on cake -- we all know bottlenecks only appear at the top of the bottle. Sometimes, I wonder why on earth did we for the matter of fact, create slices and dices of Leadership Development and segregated people basis " Bands", Grades etc, whereas we know that in reality, we all work together as a team. Question to ask is " Why cannot we replicate the real life scenario when it comes to Leadership Development with people across the spectrum learning together....