The new deal on Leadership learning

How leaders learn - Challenge and Risk

Sustainable leadership development occurs when managers work through organisational change. When you ask effective leaders what has been important in their development; they talk about leaders they have worked with and the personal and professional challenges they have faced and overcome. Somewhere along the line their boss or their boss’s boss took a risk with them for the sake of their learning. Perhaps it was a stretch experience, a delegated task, a piece of change like a new process or technology implementation or a restructure. It may have been an investment or funding decision or perhaps it was working through a personal crisis with one of their team. Whatever the story, these people can point to at least one example that is sharp in their memory as a point of departure to a new level of confidence.

The restructuring of the last two decades has dislocated development. The processes for identifying and developing leaders have fallen out of step with what many organisations have needed to do in order to manage costs and become output orientated. Positions have been eliminated, sacrificing development opportunities that in the past would have exposed high-potential people to a broad range of problems. Leadership development has depreciated into the management of bureaucratic routines as organisations have tended to pitch towards event based training as a poor substitute for the environments that used to provide rich experiential opportunities.

The fall back has become a bland and programmed approach to learning that is often too prescriptive, too invasive, too faculty centric, and basically overconfident in its expectations. Many executive programmes are based on the flawed assumption that they know what managers need. The more common reality is that given the always emerging and rapidly changing environments in which our leaders operate; leadership learning actually needs to occur in the context of the organisation and its own challenges. Most main-stream corporate leadership development is much too broadly applicable and poorly measured. The simple fact is that training and education is an input, and learning is an output. It is entirely possible to train without learning and equally viable to learn without training.

Leadership learning is about change. It would be easy if leadership, like mathematics, was a formulaic theory into practice process, but it is not. Leadership is a complex skill that is all about relationships and engagement.

What we know to be true about leadership development:

 1.      Powerful questions are much better for leaders than answers - leaders need to sit with disturbing questions and not be passively exposed to solutions.

2.      Without self-reflection and awareness of others needs, learning  does not happen. We need to face reality and increase awareness of self and others and to do this we need to:

a.       increase acceptance  or the diversity in ourselves and others - not tolerance or agreement - just acceptance 

b.      think in terms of contribution and accountability - answer the question: what is my contribution to that which enthuses me and that which  irritates/bothers me?

c.      reduce the embrace of fear-based data and self-protectionism and increase appropriate vulnerability and openness; and

d.     reduce any ivory tower isolation and loneliness and increase meaningful connection with others. It is leaders who create the opportunity for casual collision of thinking and learning across disciplines and functions

3.      Asking questions is central to change and authentic conversation and discussion shapes and defines results

4.      The pull of a compelling vision is more powerful than the push of a fearful possibility and creating a future or just letting it happen is a conscious choice

5.      None of us are as smart as all of us – diversity of thinking creates more robust solutions

The case for getting it right

The essence of capability is translating what people know into solutions that are valued by customers’. Everything we do inside the organisation needs to build the capability that creates value for clients and customers. This demands clarity on the connections between where we want to be and what knowledge, skills and business processes will be required to get there. This usually involves change and it always involves leadership.

Sustainable change occurs when leaders engage people in a compelling future that is better than their current reality and rallies them to feel they are part of an achieving team. People come to work to be treated as contributing adults engaged in producing results. They want to feel the engagement and satisfaction that comes from being recognised as being part of something that works. When people feel productive and begin to see tangible results – no matter how small, they line up, put their shoulders to the wheel and push.

The case for getting it right[1] is that:

 ·        Uncertainty creates demand for effective leadership and the capability to manage change

·        A reliance on buying leadership is hard work, expensive and has no money back guarantee.

·        Derailments are expensive, the higher the level the greater the cost.

·        Survival of the fittest is not as effective as survival of the best; leaving succession and development up to chance is high risk.

·        Stakeholders and analysts factor in the quality of leaders in their assessments.

·        Talented people are attracted to organisations that provide leadership and growth and where their talent will be recognised.

 The common signature of this talent are that they:

 ·        Seek feedback and opportunities to learn

·        Act with integrity

·        Are committed to making a difference

·        Seek broad business knowledge

·        Demonstrate insight and see things from new angles

·        Have the courage to take risks

·        Respond constructively to criticism

·        Get organisational attention and investment

·        Create an effective context for other people’s learning

·        Can create a shared vision

·        Hate losing and

·        Love results

So what?

 When it comes to authentic leadership learning the really powerful opportunities lie in getting senior people together to work in a focused way on how to cross the line between the current state and the desired future. This cannot be a passive list making exercise; it needs a robust set of qualitative and quantitative tools and group processes that can add some discipline to their thinking.

For effective results leaders must share a consistent view of the strategy and possess a clear understanding on how what they do as teams and individuals contributes to this strategy. Engagement depends on an understanding of the big picture, clarity on how I as an individua and my team contribute to that picture, clarity on what ‘good’ looks like and knowing who will tell me how we’re doing.

 Needs Assessment

Like any investment, senior management development needs to be qualified by an assessment or need and an ROI analysis.

1. Current/Desired states. Focus on the following questions:

o  What does the strategy say about capability?

o  What changes are you making in your business process and operating procedures?

o  How do those changes impact our managers’ accountabilities?

o  What knowledge, skills and behaviours will our managers’ need to lead in their roles and in the organisation?

o  How will our managers’ best accept and integrate this knowledge, skills and behaviours?

o  How do our managers’ learn?

o  How can we deliver the learning to our managers’?

2. Identify Gaps. Interview senior managers to identify their perceptions of their needs against the current and desired states and identify what IRL can and cannot provide to meet learning needs and then test the assumptions behind those judgements.

3. Assess Options.  Focus on the following questions:

o  Is it a training and education need?

o  Is it a matter of clarity of accountability and opportunity to exercise this accountability?

o  For the options that offer education solutions – how will that help IRL realise its strategy?

o  For the options that engage managers in real business challenges - how will that help IRL realise its strategy?

o  Do external vendors have a proven track record of satisfied customers?

o  Will they work well with your business culture?

o  Will they be able to address the gaps you have identified?

o  Can they provide you with flexibility and tailored options?

o  What evaluation processes do they apply?

 Development Pathways

1.     Management Education

A typical exec programme includes generic content on strategy, leadership and change supplemented by case studies. The education is usually delivered by credentialed academics covering a broad range of content such as:

·        Strategic thinking, strategy identification and evaluation

·        Industry analysis and competitive advantage

·        Forecasting environmental trends

·        Creating and sustaining the high performance

·        Building strategic capabilities and service excellence

·        Supplier relationships

·        Innovation, customisation and market focus

·        Leading change

·        Strategic implementation

·        International and local trends

·        Global economy, competition and strategic intent

·        National and industry competitive advantage

·        Culture as a source of competitive advantage

·        Value creation

 2.     Action Learning – Line Crossing Challenges

The focus on funding, capability demands and a competitive talent market has created an imperative for organisations to focus on developing their people. Development in this context is based on identifying and working on people’s strengths to make them more of who they already are. With this pathway adult learning is understood as a profoundly social process where people learn best thorough the modelled experience of trusted peers and leaders and in the context of stretch experiences dealing with real organisational challenges. In this approach people get constructive feedback and coaching. Leaders identify the peak experiences that have shaped their development and we look at how we can replicate these experiences in the context of ‘line crossing’ challenges for other managers.

Action learning is based on working on the business and research challenges and opportunities that will enable the organisation to create value. These opportunities need to be real with outcomes that are expected to be implemented. People work in pairs and small groups on these projects as a function of their regular job.

·        The projects would typically be selected by senior management. Each project would have a senior sponsor who has a vested interest in getting the work done, and taking action, plus the authority and resources to make it happen.

·        It is best to have several projects so that the participants have some choice about which one they work on resulting in them having more energy and commitment to the work

·        The projects are ideally around 3-6 months in duration with people committing time; so it needs to be real work that is critical for the organisation to get done; and the participants better be likely to see action taken on their work

·        Shadow executive type accountability is another option for working up solutions to real business change issues and presentations to senior management or Board members.

3.    Talent Pools

We need change here. Where Talent Pools used to be secret lists, they need to be open and competitive programmes. They need to have a brand based on the pool or pools being hard and exposed places to be, but where there is opportunity for the successful. In the future talent pools will be programmes where assessed high potentials receive investment in their development and where they are expected to match that investment with their own time and energy. If they take advantage of this, there will be opportunities. If not, then they can move aside and let someone else demonstrate their talent.

4.    Summary

Successful leadership development focuses on four components:

1.      Managing the pipeline: To ensure the needed quantity and quality of future leaders, the leadership team need to consistently manage high potential expectations.

2.      Supportive networks: The leadership team must help high potentials build professional, information-rich relationships with managers, peers, and direct reports.

3.      Credible Commitment: The organisation needs to build customised and achievable development plans that are coupled with visible executive-level commitment.

4.      Context: Development experiences must focus on the presence and quality of the leadership challenge inside the experience. Projects, assignments and stretch experiences should be structured to ensure that they contain a high level of stretch and personal challenge. The projects also need to add value to the business so that senior leaders invest their own commitment to achieving a result.

[1] Adapted from Morgan J McCall. High Flyers – Developing the next generation of leaders. Harvard Business School Press. 1998