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.
Our team advise and support thousands of leaders across all sectors. In this series of articles our CEO, Richard Moore, distils practical advice from real leader successes and challenges. Advice focussed on how leaders can ensure their organisations – teams – outperform.
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.
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.
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.
[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