development solutions

A robust leadership development strategy is based on:

• Business imperatives and succession priorities
  Leadership development doesn’t begin with copying the programmes and practices of “best practice” organisations. It starts with a clear view of what matters to your organisation and what it needs to do to compete in future. This is prioritising the investment in development around key pivotal roles and individuals.
• A recognition that some individuals are more “developable” than others
  Playing “succession roulette” to bet equally on all professionals and executives is an expensive resourcing strategy. The reality is that some individuals, despite their early promise or impressive results at the start of their careers, have a “short runway.” Build in an assessment of “runway” to differentiate the individuals who may have achieved quick success but whose growth potential is limited from those individuals who represent a better investment for the long-term.
• Targeting development on the individual and their “career focus”
  Company-wide initiatives organised around standard training and educational activity for a professional/management group have huge value in reinforcing organisational values and cultural norms and creating a shared understanding of leadership requirements. The downside is that participants have different pasts, face different challenges in the present and have different aspirations and ambitions for the future. This represents a genuine dilemma in planning a strategy for talent development. An exclusive focus on each individual and their personal development makes it difficult to create collective purpose across the leadership population. But standard programmes can easily become “sheep-dip” exercises, where delegates are herded through a series of modules, few of any relevance. Real life experience of the “tough stuff”

Formal training and educational events have the capacity to accelerate learning around specific issues, and coaching and mentoring can do much to guide and support personal development. But the development of leadership comes from exposure to the trials and tribulations, the uncertainties and adversities of organisational life. This is not an argument for “trial-by-fire”, but an appeal for development to be grounded in challenge and action.