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Leadership development is the pressing need of organisations across the globe. Whilst there are organisations investing significant sums of money to develop leaders, according to recent research the results have been disappointing. Management-Issues discusses research by the Global Leadership Forecast 2008|2009, by consultants DDI, which sets out to examine why confidence in leaders is declining despite a heightened focus on developing leadership talent. The study surveyed almost 1,500 HR professionals and more than 12,000 leaders from 76 countries. The key findings of this research is as follows:

• Although three-quarters of the executives surveyed said that improving leadership talent was a top business priority, just four out of 10 were satisfied with what their organizations were actually doing to help them, a decline of 12 percentage points since the last Leadership Forecast was published two years ago.
• “… what emerges from the report is a clear message that while executives want more opportunities to learn on the job, such as special projects or moving to a new assignment, their senior management seldom takes responsibility for making this happen".”
• Almost six out of 10 executives said that they and their manager had not agreed on a formal written plan for their development.
• Only around a third of senior managers were held accountable for the success of leadership development programs.
• Just a quarter of organizations monitor their leadership development programs or formally measure their results. "Great leadership doesn’t happen by accident - organizations need to start listening to their leaders and make the right development investments if they want different results than they’re getting now," Wellins said.
• Only half of organizations globally have succession plans for their leadership team and US organizations even lower than the global sample. “But having succession plans isn’t the whole story - HR professionals indicated that one in three succession candidates fail.”

This research makes it clear that developing future leaders is not seen as a priority by today’s leaders. The sad thing is that one of the primary responsibilities of leaders is to grow and develop other leaders. It seems that we are failing in executing this responsibility. What actions can you take over the following week to start developing a programme to grow and develop future leaders in your teams and organisations?

 

Technorati Tags: Leadership, Leadership Development, Development, Research, Management, Business, Talent, HR, Succession

Having written one of my first posts on “How to Read and Digest a Book!” the post by Seth Godin on How to read a business book, really caught my attention. In the post Seth makes the following observation on how people go about reading a business book…

“…..They cruise through the case studies or the insights or examples and imagine what it would be like to be that brilliant entrepreneur or that successful CEO or that great sales rep. A pleasant adventure…. [however] … There’s a huge gap between most how-to books (cookbooks, gardening, magic, etc.) and business books, though. The gap is motivation….. The fascinating thing is this: I spend 95% of my time persuading people to take action and just 5% of the time on the recipes…. The recipe that makes up just about any business book can be condensed to just two or three pages. The rest is the sell. The proof. The persuasion.”

Given the difference between “how to books” and business books, to be effective we need to read to extract maximum value for the investment we’re making of our time and money. This is the initial reason I wrote the post on “How to Read and Digest a Book!”, in which I recommend that to be effective one needs to have a system to extract insight and plan for their implementation…

 

 

Seth Godin, in his post How to read a business book, recommends the following tips which complements and builds on what I have already recommended, making the following points:

1. Decide, before you start, that you’re going to change three things about what you do all day at work. Then, as you’re reading, find the three things and do it. The goal of the reading, then, isn’t to persuade you to change, it’s to help you choose what to change.

2. If you’re going to invest a valuable asset (like time), go ahead and make it productive. Use a postit or two, or some index cards or a highlighter. Not to write down stuff so you can forget it later, but to create marching orders. It’s simple: if three weeks go by and you haven’t taken action on what you’ve written down, you wasted your time.

3. It’s not about you, it’s about the next person. The single best use of a business book is to help someone else. Sharing what you read, handing the book to a person who needs it… pushing those around you to get in sync and to take action–that’s the main reason it’s a book, not a video or a seminar. A book is a souvenir and a container and a motivator and an easily leveraged tool. Hoarding books makes them worth less, not more.

Effective managers hand books to their team. Not so they can be reminded of high school, but so that next week she can say to them, "are we there yet?"

These a great insights and take my thoughts a step further. So, how purposeful are you in your reading? Do you have a system to extract, process and implement the insights you’ve gained from your reading? How many of these insights you actually implemented over the past year?

 

Technorati Tags: Reading, Book, Leadership, Management, Development, Growth, Business, Execution, GTD, Lifehack, Lifehacks, Getting Things Done, Effectiveness

 

 

Photo by jgrantmac

 

I came across an interesting Harvard Business Review article “How Successful Leaders Think” which really resonated with me. The author Roger Martin makes the following point concerning leadership:

“But this focus on what a leader does is misplaced. That’s because moves that work in one context often make no sense in another, even at the same company or within the same experience of a single leader….. Trying to learn from what Jack Welch did invites confusion and incoherence, because he pursued - wisely, I might add - diametrically opposed courses at different points in his career and in GE’s history… So where do we look for lessons? A more productive, though more difficult approach is to focus on how a leader thinks - that is, to examine the antecedent of doing, or the way in which leaders’ cognitive processes produce their actions.”

The point made my Roger really hit me between the eyes. Leadership starts with how we think and ends in the actions which arise from those thoughts. We need to learn the principles and attitudes from other successful leaders, rather than blindly copying their actions and behaviours.

• Learn the Principles: Copying the ten quick steps to casting vision by following the action of a successful leader does not work. Gaining insight into the thinking and principles that underpins a leaders actions is what’s most important. Leadership principles can be understood and adapted and used to guide effective action to meet the local situation.
• Learn the Attitudes: Leadership begins with the decision to lead, it’s a choice we make…. or fail to make. Once we’ve make the decision to lead, we need to start developing the attitudes and thinking that define leaders. The decision to create a meaningful purpose and vision, decisions motivated by a passion and energy to be the change you wish to see in the world, and the decision to be committed and to persevere to see it through.

 

Could it be that leadership is lacking because we fail to do the hard work of learning to think? With limited time for meaningful reflection and deep thinking, it’s no wonder we are increasingly finding a lack of leadership. How about in your personal life? Do you set aside sufficient time to think? How is this affecting your leadership? Are you learning the principles and attitude of other successful leaders? Are you learning to think like a leader?

 

Technorati Tags: Think, Thinking, Reflection, Leadership, Leadership Development, Management, Harvard, Execution

Photo by urbanjacksonville

 

Marshall Goldsmith wrote an interesting article “Great Leaders Are Made Not Born” discussing leadership development effectiveness, when Marshall Goldsmith and his partner Howard Morgan, conducted an extensive study on leadership development programs involving over 86,000 participants in eight major corporations. Their finding were that…

“Leaders who participated in a development program, received 360º feedback, selected important areas for improvement, discussed these with co-workers and followed-up with co-workers on a consistent basis (to check on progress) were rated as becoming dramatically better leaders — not in a self-assessment, but in the assessment of co-workers — six to eighteen months after the initial program. Leaders who participated in the same developmental programs — and received the same type of feedback — but did no follow-up were seen as improving no more than random chance.”

Marshall Goldsmith provided the following suggestions as to how we can increase our leadership effectiveness:

1. Get 360º feedback on your present level of effectiveness — as judged by co-workers that you respect.
2. Pick the most important behaviors for change — those you believe will enhance your effectiveness as a leader (i.e., “become a more effective listener” or “make decisions in a timely manner”).
3. Periodically ask co-workers for suggestions on how you can do an even better job in your selected behaviors for change.
4. Listen to their ideas (don’t promise to change everything) and make the changes that you believe will further increase your effectiveness.
5. Follow-up and measure change in effectiveness over time.

Direct feedback is essential to our development as leaders. Critical feedback is often missing simply because we fail to ask for feedback. Why not ask a trusted co-worker this week for feedback on your leadership effectiveness?

 

Technorati Tags: Leadership, Feedback, Mentor, Coach, Coaching, Management, Development, Leadership Development, Personal Development, Growth

Chief Learning Officer magazine has an article "Leadership Development in 2008" that discussing research which found the following six best practices common to highly successful leadership development initiatives.

1. Strong executive engagement: The most important practice of all is to obtain the engagement of top leaders and managers. Their commitment means that the program will be highly regarded, aligned with corporate strategy and focused on the right business issues.
2. Tailored leadership competencies: Successful leadership development programs are based on identified leadership competencies. By isolating and agreeing upon leadership competencies most important to your business, you will have the foundation for leadership development, as well as succession planning, career development and other talent-related processes.
3. Alignment with business strategy: Leadership development is far more than management training. As leaders move up in the organization, their skills must shift from people and project management to strategic business and operations management. Organizations such as Agilent, Aetna and Cisco focus heavily on company-specific business strategies in their leadership programs.
4. Target all levels of leadership: While the term “leadership” may not seem to apply to first-line managers, we find that high-impact programs have elements that apply to every level of management.
5. Apply a comprehensive and ongoing approach: No sound leadership development program consists solely of an instructor-led training event. Programs must include developmental assignments, 360-degree assessments, meetings with global counterparts, case studies, external education and a wide variety of e-learning and other media to give leaders a complete experience. People learn to lead by doing, so the best leadership development programs focus heavily on experiential learning.
6. Integrate with talent management: To build a sustainable leadership pipeline, organizations must implement programs to assess leadership potential (part of the performance management process), identify successors to existing leaders and place these individuals into the right development programs as part of the company’s regular business practices. In fact, one of the biggest indicators of a first-class leadership development program is a set of established practices and a corporate culture that encourages development throughout the enterprise.

These are a great set of leadership development practices to use in your leadership development programmes. As leadership talent becomes more scarce, developing people from within become more and more important. What are you doing to develop the leaders of tomorrow for your team and organisation?

 

Technorati Tags: Leadership, Leadership Development, Succession, Management, Business, Development, HR, Talent, Best Practice

Spotting a New Leader by Fred Smith provides insight into some of the traits to look for when identifying future leaders, which he describes the following 10 signs of leadership potential.

1. Leadership in the past. "The best predictor of the future is the past."
2. The capacity to create or catch vision. "When I talk to people about the future, I want their eyes to light up. I want them to ask the right questions about what I’m talking about…… A person who doesn’t feel the thrill of challenge is not a potential leader."
3. A constructive spirit of discontent. "Some people would call this criticism, but there’s a big difference in being constructively discontent and being critical. If somebody says, ‘There’s got to be a better way to do this,’ I see if there’s leadership potential by asking, ‘Have you ever thought about what that better way might be?’ If he says no, he is being critical, not constructive. But if he says yes, a constructive spirit of discontent challenges him. That’s the unscratchable itch. It is always in the leader. People locked in the status quo are not leaders."
4. Practical ideas. "Highly original people are often not good leaders because they are unable to judge their output; they need somebody else to say, ‘This will work’ or ‘This won’t.’"
5. A willingness to take responsibility. "Carrying responsibility doesn’t intimidate me, because the joy of accomplishment—the vicarious feeling of contributing to other people—is what leadership is all about."
6. A completion factor. "Dale Carnegie used to say, ‘I know men in the ranks who will not stay in the ranks. Why? Because they have the ability to get things done.’ In the military, it is called ‘completed staff work.’ With potential leaders, when the work comes in, it’s complete. The half-cooked meal isn’t good enough."
7. Mental toughness. "No one can lead without being criticized or without facing discouragement. A potential leader needs a mental toughness. I don’t want a mean leader; I want a tough-minded leader who sees things as they are and will pay the price… Leadership creates a certain separation from one’s peers. The separation comes from carrying responsibility that only you can carry."
8. Peer respect. Peer respect doesn’t reveal ability, but it can show character and personality…. Maxey Jarmen used to say, ‘It isn’t important that people like you. It’s important that they respect you. They may like you but not follow you. If they respect you, they’ll follow you, even if perhaps they don’t like you.’"
9. Family respect. "I also look at the family of a potential leader: Do they respect him or her?"
10. A quality that makes people listen to them. "Potential leaders have a ‘holding court’ quality about them. When they speak, people listen. Other people may talk a great deal, but nobody listens to them. They’re making a speech; they’re not giving leadership. I take notice of people to whom others listen."

We all need to become better at spotting future leaders and this list is a great start. As leaders we need to be on the constant look out for people who have leadership potential. Part of a leaders legacy is to ensure that there are leaders who have been mentored and have caught our vision and this starts with spotting leadership potential. 

 

Technorati Tags: Leadership, Management, Leadership Development, Future, Development, Mentor, Coach, Legacy

The Center for Creative Leadership newsletter had an interesting article "Don’t Give Up On Leadership Character" discussing the development of leadership character. Character a critical foundation of great leadership, in fact, character is the hallmark of all great leaders. Character is important as sound character inspires trust….

"People of genius are admired. People of wealth are envied. People of power are feared. But only people of character are trusted." — Arthur Friedman

Programmes that focus on leadership development usually over emphasise the development of various leadership techniques and methods, with little or no attention given to the development of character. It’s no wonder that one of the most common leadership failures today, are failures of leadership character, and not a failure of technique or method. So how do we ensure that we are developing the character of those we mentor? By incorporating the five E’s of character development into our programmes and mentorship…

The Five E’s Of Character Development

It’s the responsibility of leaders to create the environment that encourages the development of character. The article recommends that the following five E’s, to be considered as a means for character development:

1. Example: Leadership by example leverages the natural human tendency to emulate the behavior of individuals held in high esteem. A leader’s behavior sets the standard for the entire organization.
2. Education: Leaders and organizations should find ways to discuss the importance of character, the potential pressures on and challenges to character, and the short- and long-term implications of a lapse of character. Education might include discussions of case studies and scenarios that involve difficult moral or ethical choices.
3. Environment: The organization’s culture is shaped and developed over time by the actions and values of people in the organization. Senior leaders can establish an environment that is open to character development by creating a clear, detailed, practical set of organizational values and by ensuring that everyone in the organization lives those values.
4. Experience: Senior leaders should ensure that high-potential employees are given "stretch" jobs and assignments requiring them to make difficult choices, which can help them better understand and develop character. These experiences also provide good indications of the character strengths and weaknesses of those who might become the future leaders of the organization.
5. Evaluation: Clear expectations regarding patterns of behavior need to be established and communicated. Leaders can then use feedback sessions and performance evaluations to gauge their progress, reviewing specific instances when their character was challenged and either stood fast or cracked.

This list is a great means of creating an environment that encourages the development of a person’s character. Remember, that….

"The glory of great men should always be measured by the means they have used to acquire it." - Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Photo by Aprevit

As leaders we need to be constantly learning and growing, one of the best way’s to grow is by having a few good mentors to guide you on your journey. A mentor is defined in the Wiktionary as "A wise and trusted counselor or teacher". whilst this is a good definition, it only refers to the traits of a mentor, is does not really help one understand what an effective mentor should do. I like to think of a mentor as a guide, someone who can help us make our way successfully on our journey. To help one successfully navigate through life, a guide is a great help as…..

• …a guide has been there before
• …a guide has more experience than you
• …a guide shows you the way
• … a guide keeps you away from dead-end trials
• … a guide helps you steer clear of the quicksand

One of the failings of mentor / mentee relationships, is a misunderstanding of what the relationship should look and feel like. This is why this post by David Maister titled, "Are you being mentored?", discussing what we should be getting from our mentors was useful to me. David challenges us by asking, do you currently have someone who:

• Is reliably, dependably on your side, but is not afraid to critique you?
• You can rely on to tell you the truth - gently, but nevertheless the truth?
• Helps you understand how you are perceived, inside your organization and in the marketplace?
• Helps you extract the right lessons from your disappointments and failures?
• Keep you from getting carried way with too much enthusiasm about your successes?
• Watches you and lets you know when you are failing to keep things in balance?
• Acts as your sounding board for your new ideas before you launch them, so that you can refine them (and sometimes abandon the crazier ones?)
• Suggests new things for you to consider?
• Helps you see things from fresh perspectives, and helps you think things through, without substituting their judgment for yours?
• Helps you understand the politics of the organization you are in or have to work with?

We all need mentors who can challenges us to stretch and grow. Usually leaders need more than one mentor to speak into their lives, as one would typically find one person who can fulfil the list described above, in the various areas of our lives.

• Do you have a mentor(s) that speaks into your life?
• Looking at the above list how healthy are is your mentor / mentee relationship?

 

Leadership development and leadership succession are of the most important concerns of effective leaders. One of the key decision which needs to made is what is an appropriate approach to leadership succession? Should leaders consider primarily internal or external candidates? The article "Internal Versus External Succession May Be Best Long-Term Talent Bet" provides some insight, it discusses research conducted by the global HR consulting firm, Hay Group which found that…

"…it’s more important to promote from within, particularly for senior-level executive roles. According to the numbers, external hires for a senior position, such as CEO, simply don’t last as long, and even when they stay, external hires often run into trouble more frequently than internal ones….. ‘Outside CEOs tend to get the boot quicker,’ said Ron Garonzik, vice president of Hay Group. ‘They’re at a disadvantage, because it’s harder for them to read the people, culture and nuances of working within the organization. Three-quarters of Fortune’s most admired companies hire from internal pools as a matter of preference or policy.’"

I feel that the the selection of a successor requires the careful consideration of an organisation’s competitive challenges, strategy and maturity. Does the organisation need to build on it’s existing strategy? Does the organisation need to re-invent itself? Some additional key questions discussed in the article that need to be answered before deciding our approach to leadership succession include:

• What’s the company’s strategic story going forward?
• What are the operating requirements over a three- to five-year time horizon?
• How is the organization changing?
• How will the top executive roles need to change to fit new business demands?
• Does the organization need the successor to be a visionary?
• Should the person have deep operational credibility and experience? 

One of the interesting points highlighted in the article, is the importance of planning for leadership succession whilst considering what will the organisations top business critical positions are over the next 3-5 years and what style of leadership would that operating model require….

"Internal candidates have an edge, because an organization has the opportunity to proactively assess what development and experience candidates are missing, provide these and subsequently mitigate risks well in advance of a proposed transition or succession. This assessment means asking questions to find out exactly what’s needed to groom people for those top 30 or so business critical positions…… ‘You’d be surprised how many organizations, …[are]…. not automatically clear on the positions that will drive their operating model,’ Garonzik said…… Once you’re clear on the positions, then you can ask, ‘What do we need from a leadership standpoint? How can we better prepare people for those different positions?’"

How effectively are you developing your organisation’s or team’s future leaders? How effective is your succession planning?

 

Technorati Tags: Leadership Development, Leadership, Succession, Talent, Planning, Strategy, Business, Management

It’s important to take a holistic view of leadership. This is exactly what Jim Bolt has done in his article on the importance of "Developing The 3-Dimensional Leader". He makes the opening point that "Too many leaders today are one-dimensional, narrowly focused on business results…." and we have all seen the devastating results of narrowly focused leadership! Having posted frequently over the past few weeks on leadership development and leadership succession, it was interesting to read Jim’s view on the two factors that have resulted in our existing leadership development crisis, which he consider are:

1. Outdated Leadership Development Approaches: "The traditional methods used to train and educate leaders have not kept pace with the monumental changes taking place in the world….  The primary focus in too many universities and corporations is still on how business skills will produce leaders who have strong functional, technical and financial capabilities. When leadership development is provided, it is often treated in separate programs as if it were an isolated issue apart from the business challenges leaders face."
2. Inadequate On-the-job Experiences: "On-the-job experiences and development frequently do not produce the leadership our organizations need. Many argue that 70% of learning takes place on the job but what is it that our leaders are learning? Most develop a narrow functional-technical perspective as a result of spending their entire career in one area. Many are risk-averse due to the severe consequences of making mistakes, which severely inhibits learning. Few have any work experience out of their home country (that’s getting to be a big problem given the global economy and competition). Too many neglect family and friends to meet the demands of the job, and a system that frequently encourages and rewards workaholism."

The result…..?

These experiences historically foster management rather than leadership skills. When they are placed in leadership positions, their style is often traditional and authoritarian, which is demonstrated by their need to over-manage, to be seen as the "expert," to solve all problems, make all decisions, and maintain control. Capable of managing but unfit to lead is a fitting description of these executives.

Over-managed and under-lead is what immediately springs to mind!

 

Three-Dimensional Leadership

To address this narrow focus on management, Jim proposes that we take a broader view of leadership, looking more holistically at what leadership is all about. In this light he proposes a three dimensional leadership model, which calls for the development of an individual’s skills in the following three areas:

• Business Dimension: Mind-sets and capabilities needed to identify and address critical business challenges. The business dimension is developed by providing executives with the capabilities needed to identify and address critical business challenges. Therefore, development efforts might be focused on such things as creating new organizations, building market-focused and customer-focused organizations, leading change, winning in the global marketplace, creating a learning organization, fostering innovation, and leveraging technology.
• Leadership Dimension: Fully developed leadership capacity needed to lead the organization confidently into the future. The leadership dimension might concentrate on a study of a broad range of classical and contemporary theories and skills so that leaders can develop their own personal expression of leadership. Based on integrity and authenticity, leadership is a combination of both competence and character.
• Personal Dimension: Personal effectiveness skills needed to achieve excellence, balance and ongoing renewal. Attention to the personal dimension has suffered most because of the mistaken view that business and personal matters can and should be separated, and because corporate cultures often reward individuals who are consumed with business. Based on the belief that individuals cannot be effective leaders if they are ineffectual in their personal lives, executives need to learn skills such as clarifying individual purpose, vision, values and talents on the one hand, and effectively integrating work, personal goals and priorities on the other.

I thought that this provides a great foundation for anyone looking to develop those leaders around you. Have you taken a holistic approach to the development of your organisation’s or team’s leaders? Do you have a holistic approach to your personal development?

 

Technorati Tags: Leadership Development, Leadership, Management, Development, Growth, Holistic, Strategy, Stretch, Business

 

"From now on, [choosing my successor] is the most important decision I’ll make. It occupies a considerable amount of thought almost every day." - Jack Welch, on succession planning in 1991 (10 years before his retirement)

Leadership development and succession planing is critical for today’s organisations. Successful leaders take considerable time in developing leaders and plan for leadership succession, to ensure that they leave a legacy and that their mission is completed. Sucession planning starts long before the leader is ready to leave the organisation. It’s part of the leaders responsibility to develop others.

• How are you going about succession planning in your team and organisation?
• Is succession planning a daily responsibility of company management and leadership?

Consider the following…..

"How am I doing as a leader? The answer is how the people you lead are doing. Do they learn? Do they visit customers? Do they manage conflict? Do they initiate change? Are they growing and getting promoted? You won’t remember when you retire what you did in the first quarter of 1994 or the third. What you’ll remember is how many people you developed. How many people you helped have a better career because of your interest and your dedication to their development…. When confused as to how you’re doing as a leader, find out how the people you lead are doing. You’ll know the answer." - Larry Bossidy from The Leadership Engine

If the answer to the above questions is "no" or "I don’t know" then I would say you’re not effectively managing leadership succession….

"At the end of the day, you be on people, not on strategies" - Larry Bossidy from The Leadership Engine

 

Technorati Tags: Leadership Development, Leadership, Management, Business, Succession, Planning, Strategy, HR, Talent, Learning, Growth

IBM just released a study they’re calling the Global Human Capital Study 2008 and it provides some interesting reading and highlights the raising importance of leadership in organisations. The study is the result of interviews conducted with 400 human resources executives from 40 countries. It suggests that companies are putting their growth strategies at risk if they cannot identify and develop the next generation of leaders.

 

 

"A lack of leadership capability has become a significant barrier to growth for many organizations… Without sufficient leadership talent, who will set the direction? Who will paint the vision? Who will lead the change? It’s not only an HR issue. It is a business imperative…."

I could not agree more…. Leadership is the key to organisational success. The IBM research found that organisations cite leadership capability as one of their top workforce challenges. When asked "What do you see as the primary workforce-related issues facing the organization?" the participants responded as follows (the responses are reflected in percent):

 

 

The report goes on to highlight the concerns that companies are having in developing future leaders….

"Not only are companies concerned with their current leadership capacity, they are confronted by their inability to develop future leadership talent …. Over 75 percent of companies indicate building leadership talent is a significant challenge. Companies in the Asia Pacific region are most concerned with their ability to develop future leaders (88 percent); followed by Latin America (74 percent); Europe, Middle East and Africa, (74 percent); Japan (73 percent) and North America (69 percent). The inability to rotate top leadership talent is also cited as an important issue."

 

 

 

The implications…..?

 

"Companies are finding themselves with a leadership vacuum, with fewer individuals who have the knowledge and experience to guide others through necessary business transformations. Without leaders who can provide the direction, feedback and clarity needed to navigate in a more complex world, companies will struggle to achieve business goals."

The report is available for free from the IBM website after completing their registration form.

 

Technorati Tags: Leadership, Management, Strategy, HR, IBM, Leadership Development, Talent, Human Resources, Research, Business, Trends

Fortune worked with human resources consultants Hewitt Associates and RBL Group to rank the world’s companies that do the best job of developing strong leaders, their research listed the following top 20 best companies at developing leadership:

1. General Electric, Fairfield, CT, U.S.
2. Procter & Gamble, Cincinnati, OH, U.S.
3. Nokia, Espoo, Finland
4. Hindustan Unilever, Mumbai, India
5. Capital One Financial, McLean, VA, U.S.
6. General Mills, Minneapolis, MN, U.S.
7. McKinsey
8. IBM, Armonk, NY, U.S.
9. BBVA, Bilbao, Spain
10. Infosys Technologies, Bangalore, India
11. Inditex, S.A., Arteixo, Spain
12. Medtronic, Inc., Minneapolis, MN, U.S.
13. Eli Lilly and Company, Indianapolis, IN, U.S.
14. McDonald’s Corporation, Oakbrook, IL, U.S.
15. Whirlpool Corporation, Benton Harbor, MI, U.S.
16. Natura Cosméticos,Itapecerica da Serra-SP, Brazil
17. GlaxoSmithKline, Brentford, Britain
18. Australia and New Zealand Banking Group, Melbourne, Australia
19. ICICI Bank, Mumbai, India
20. WIPRO, Bangalore, India

"Hewitt’s Gandossy: ‘Companies that provide people with opportunities to learn and grow become talent magnets, drawing scarce talent in droves.’ By continually attracting the most promising graduates and then developing them, these firms become higher-performing organizations, enhancing their ability to attract the best - a self-reinforcing cycle that makes the company more dominant every year."

The Fortune article "How top companies breed stars" provides some insight into how these companies go about developing leadership.

• Invest time and money - "You don’t build leaders on the cheap, and you don’t just bolt a development program onto existing HR procedures. Indeed, the biggest investment involved may be the time of the CEO and other executives. At McDonald’s, CEO Jim Skinner personally reviews the development of the company’s top 200 managers. At GE, Immelt reviews the top 600. Bill Hawkins of Medtronic (No. 12) spends 50% of his time on people issues, and many of the other CEOs report similar percentages - making it the largest commitment of time they have……. Lots of companies claim they’re interested in developing leaders, but the University of Michigan’s Noel Tichy, a top authority on the subject, says that checking their commitment is easy: "Just show me the CEO’s calendar."
• Identify promising leaders early - "’We begin to evaluate leadership capability on day one of employment,’ says GE’s John Rice….. Spotting leaders early means working on their development early. That’s a big change at most companies, where programs were long reserved for an elite group several years into their careers.
• Choose assignments strategically - "John Lechleiter, president and COO of Eli Lilly, offers a typical model: About two-thirds of leadership development comes from job experience, about one-third from mentoring and coaching, and a smidgen from classroom training…. Organizations tend to assign people based on what they’re good at, not what they need to work on."
• Develop leaders within their current jobs - "Many CEOs report new tension between the need to develop people by moving them through different jobs and the need to develop their expertise in certain domains by leaving them put. One reason: A division has a tough time competing when the boss moves on after just 18 to 24 months, a typical pattern…… One technique: short-term work assignments. Managers don’t leave their jobs, but they take on an additional assignment outside their field of expertise or interest.
• Be passionate about feedback and support - "It’s the most elementary principle of learning: If you don’t know how you’ve performed, you don’t learn and you soon stop caring. Yet at many companies, feedback is rare, candid feedback even rarer. The companies on our list combine frequent, honest assessment with plenty of mentoring and support. So when people are told what skills they need to improve, they’re also offered programs or coaching for doing it."
• Develop teams, not just individuals - "’At the GE I grew up in, most of my training was individually based,’ says Immelt. That led to problems. He’d attend a three-week program at Crotonville, but back at work ‘I could use only 60% of what I’d learned because I needed others - my boss, my IT guy - to help with the rest.’ ….Now GE takes whole teams and puts them through Crotonville together, where they make real decisions about their business. Result: ‘There’s no excuse for not doing it.’"
• Exert leadership through inspiration - "Yes, you can make people do what you say by firing and demoting. We all know how well that works. It works even worse in today’s information-based economy, where most employees aren’t turning wrenches but instead are using knowledge and relationships with results that may not be easily observed day to day. Try making them do what you say, or even telling them exactly what to do. Says Lafley: ‘The command-and-control model of leadership just won’t work 99% of the time.’"
• Encourage leaders to be active in their communities - "The advantages are many. Most companies have enunciated values that include respect for the individual, good citizenship, and integrity. When company leaders also become leaders of charities, schools, and other nonprofits, they show their commitment to those values, encouraging and inspiring employees. Other benefits are more pragmatic. Most employees will never serve on the company’s board or on any major corporate board. But many of them can serve on a local nonprofit’s board, and the experience is an excellent leadership developer."
• Make leadership development part of the culture - "Though executives at these companies talk about their leadership-development programs, they realize the term isn’t quite right. Developing leaders isn’t a program; it’s a way of living. For example, honest feedback has to be culturally okay. At many companies it isn’t. Devoting significant time to mentoring has to be accepted. Working for nonprofits has to be encouraged, not just tolerated."

 

Technorati Tags: Leadership, Development, Management, Business, Training, Culture, Inspiration, Feedback

Skip from Be Excellent™ posted a list of eleven criteria for spotting future leaders, from Ram Charan’s book Know-How, they are:

1. They consistently deliver ambitious results.
2. They continuously demonstrate growth, adaptability, and learning better and faster than their excellently performing peers.
3. They seize the opportunity for challenging, bigger assignments, thereby expanding capability and capacity and improving judgment.
4. They have the ability to think through the business and take leaps of imagination to grow the business.
5. They are driven to take things to the next level.
6. Their powers of observation are very acute, forming judgments of people by focusing on their decisions, behaviors, and actions, rather than relying on initial reactions and gut instincts; they can mentally detect and construct the “DNA” of a person.
7. They come to the point succinctly, are clear thinkers, and have the courage to state a point-of-view even though listeners may react adversely.
8. They ask incisive questions that open minds and incite the imagination.
9. They perceptively judge their own direct reports, have the courage to give them honest feedback so the direct reports grow; they dig into cause and effect if a direct report is failing.
10. They know the non-negotiable criteria of the job of heir direct reports and match the job with the person; of there is a mismatch they deal with it promptly.
11. They are able to spot talent and see the “God’s gift” of other individuals.

 

Finding and developing future leaders is the responsibility of all practicing leaders. Considering the importance of developing future leaders to the success of our organisations we need to become better as spotting talented future leaders, and this list is a great starting point.

 

Technorati Tags: Leadership, Future, HR, Talent, Management, Book, Criteria

Here is a list of 30 books that the Regional Leadership Forum’s (RLF) suggest that Can Make You a Better Leader. The underlying premise behind this list of 30 books is that although “a single book might not help you discover your inner leader, but 30 books can change your life.” The books in their list include the following:

 

1. Adler: How to Read a Book
2. Boyatzis & McKee: Resonant Leadership: Renewing Yourself and Connecting with Others through Mindfulness, Hope and Compassion
3. Kotter: Heart of Change
4. Bridges: Managing Transitions 
5. Buckingham: First Break all the Rules
6. Dotlich, Noel and Walker: Leadership Passages 
7. Conger: Winning ‘Em Over 
8. DePree: Leadership is an Art
9. Frankl: Man’s Search for Meaning
10. Friedman: The World is Flat 
11. George: Authentic Leadership
12. Ghandi: the video
13. Goleman: Working with Emotional Intelligence 
14. Hammerschlag: The Theft of the Spirit 
15. Jamison: Nibble Theory
16. Katzenbach: The Wisdom of Teams
17. Lencioni: Death by Meeting: A Leadership Problem about Solving the most Painful Problem in Business 
18. Machiavelli: The Prince
19. Mackenzie: Orbiting the Giant Hairball
20. Marquardt: Leading with Questions: How Leaders Find the Right Solutions by Knowing What to Ask
21. O’Toole: Creating the Good Life 
22. Patterson: Crucial Conversations 
23. Rousseau & Cranston: The Social Contract 
24. Shafir: The Zen of Listening 
25. Jaworski: Synchronicity 
26. Useem: Leadership Moment
27. Wallis: Two Old Women
28. Whyte: The Heart Aroused 
29. Ishiguro: Never Let Me Go
30. Michalko: Thinkertoys

 

If you’re looking for something to read on leadership this is a good starting list. One great book that stands out to me as missing from this list is “The Leadership Challenge” by Kouzes and Posner. Overall  it’s a great list, some of the books I’ve not heard and will be checking out soon…

 

Technorati Tags: Books, Reading, Management, Personal Development, Leadership, Business, Business

An article “U.S best at grooming leaders of the future” from Management-Issues, reports of a 2006 poll of Best Companies for Leaders carried out by consultancy Hay Group and the magazine Chief Executive aimed at identifying those companies most committed to and most successful at fostering leadership talent. The companies rated as the best at grooming future leaders include GE, Procter & Gamble, PepsiCo, Citigroup and Johnson & Johnson. Looking at the performance of these companies, the long-term benefits of leadership development speak for themselves. The article goes on to say that:

Common best practice included rotational job assignments for high potentials, external leadership development programmes for mid-level managers, web-based self-study leadership modules for mid-level managers and executive MBA programmes for mid-level managers.

“The Top 20 companies are far more likely to use the top practices than their peers,” said Fontaine…… “And, while many of the companies we looked at employ all of the practices, the top ones use them by a much wider margin,” she added.

I have posted previously on research discussing “Best Practice Leadership Development“. The following Fast Company article includes the following best practices used by organisations to develop their leaders and executives:

1. Linked to Strategy: Our executive development efforts are directly linked to our organization’s strategy. It’s clear how these efforts help address our marketplace challenges and/or achieve our strategic objectives.
2. Top Management Driven: Our top executives champion our executive development efforts. We have a senior, line executive advisory board. Our top executives attend the programs as participants and also teach when appropriate.
3. Strategy & System: We have a strategy and long-term plan for executive development. Our programs and practices are part of a continuous system and process rather than stand-alone, ad hoc events.
4. Thorough Front-End Analysis: No significant executive development effort is begun without a thorough front-end or needs analysis.
5. Custom Designed: We custom-design our programs so they address our unique, company-specific challenges and opportunities, and help create and/or drive our vision, values and strategies.
6. Leadership Profile, Feedback and Individual Development Plans: We use a custom-designed [linked to our vision, values, and strategies], multi-rater leadership instrument/inventory to provide confidential development feedback to our executives. Our executives have individual development plans based on that feedback.
7. Top-Down Implementation: Whenever our executive and leadership development efforts are aimed at organizational change, our top management attends the programs first as participants. Then the programs are cascaded down throughout the organization.
8. Action-Oriented Learning: Our executive learning experiences are action oriented. Whenever feasible, we use some form of “action learning” where participants apply what they are learning to real, current business problems and opportunities.
9. Succession Management: We have an effective succession management system that ensures we have the right executive, in the right job, at the right time. We seldom are forced to hire from outside the organization to fill a key executive job opening as a result of not having a qualified internal candidate prepared.
10. Integrated Talent Management System: We have a well integrated talent management system (succession management, external and internal executive education, on-the-job development, coaching/mentoring, etc.) rather than independent stand-alone processes.
11. Measurement: We set clear, measurable objectives when we create new executive development strategies, systems, processes, and programs. Then we measure the business impact using metrics that matter to senior management, and communicate the results effectively.
12. High Potential Identification and Development: Our organization has an effective process for identifying “high potential” talent and accelerating their development.

Organisations are only as strong as their leaders. High performing organisations, such as those mentioned above, make leadership development, at all levels, a top priority. So how does your organisation shape up? Which of these practices are being used in your organisation to develop leaders? Which of these practices should you consider adopting to develop your organisation or teams future leaders?

Technorati Tags: Leadership, Management, Business, Practice, Research, Strategy, Development, Best Practice, HR

Skip Reardon of Be Excellent provided a pointer to a study by the Hay Group, in partnership with Chief Executive, conducted a second year long study to identify the top companies that develop leaders systematically in ways that others acknowledge as productive of top talent. The study, considered 1,279 companies with at least $8 billion in annual revenues from around the world, focused on what top performers did differently with high potential future leaders.

Top 20 Companies for Leaders

2006	2005
1. General Electric	1. Procter & Gamble
2. Procter & Gamble	2. PepsiCo
3. PepsiCo	3. IBM
4. Citigroup	4. General Electric
5. Johnson & Johnson	5. Johnson & Johnson
6. HSBC Holdings	6. Dell
7. BASF	7. Microsoft
8. Home Depot	8. Home Depot
9. IBM	9. JPMorgan
10. Coca-Cola	10. Motorola
11. Dell	11.Pfizer
12. Microsoft	12. FedEx
13. Novartis	13. BASF
14. Verizon	14. Verizon
15. Nestle	15.BAE Systems
16. Lockheed Martin	16. Johnson Controls
17. GlaxoSmithKline	17. Siemens
18. Amgen	18. BP
19. Hewlett-Packard	19. L’Oreal
20. BAE Systems	20. Colgate-Palmolive

The study identified the following leadership development best practices…

Leadership Development Best Practices

2006 Best Practices	2005 Best Practices
1. Having leaders at all levels who focus on creating a work climate that motivates employees to perform at their best.	1. Having leaders at all levels who focus on creating a work climate that motivates employees to perform at their best.
2. Ensuring that the company and its senior management make leadership development a top priority.	2. Ensuring that the company and its senior management make leadership development a top priority.
3. Providing training and coaching to help intact leadership teams, as well as the individual leaders, work together more effectively.	3. Providing training and coaching to help intact leadership teams, as well as the individual leaders, work together more effectively.
4. Rotational job assignments for high potentials.	4. Providing job-shadowing opportunities for managers in mid-career.
5. External leadership development programs for mid-level managers.	5. Ensuring that high potentials receive objective 360-degree assessments and feedback on their leadership ability early on.
6. Web-based, self-study leadership modules for mid-level managers.	6. Ensuring that mid-level managers get enough time to take part in leadership development activities early in their careers.
7. Executive MBA programs for mid-level managers.

The 2006 survey found that the top 20 companies for leadership manage high potential employees with a greater sense of urgency and priority. They are more likely to have a formal process for identifying high potentials and a separate career track with specific programs to accelerate their development. In addition, the top 20 are more likely than other firms to include marketing as a function to which they attract high potentials. This might be due to the fact that the top 20 have a high number of market- focused businesses with leaders who value that background. Also, the top 20 are more likely to promote from within-not just for mid-level and senior managers-but for the CEO as well.

Practices That Waste Resources and Don’t Get Results

Based on the 2006 data, the practices that are least likely to create more of the right kind of leaders are as follows:

1. Outdoor activity-based programs at all levels of management
2. Paper-based self-study leadership modules at all levels of management
3. Job-shadowing for senior managers
4. Web-based self-study for senior managers and high potentials
5. Executive MBAs for senior managers

An interesting piece of research, I was surprised to see that “Executive MBAs for senior managers” as a waste of resources! The best organisations institutionalise leadership development ans continually strive to learn the most effective ways of developing leaders.

Technorati Tags: Leadership, Management, Business, Practice, Research, Strategy, Development, Best Practice, HR