Most of us understand that leadership development is important. However, more people would probably be surprised to find that leadership development programs are often seen as ineffective. Indeed, despite spending more money on development programmes, recent studies indicate that only a quarter of organisations have faith in their programmes. What’s more less than 20 percent of HR professionals believe they have the qualified leaders they need to lead their organisations into the next three years.
While the data suggests that the quality of leadership is poor, and prospects aren’t looking good for developing better leaders, perhaps it’s not the people, but the approach we take to developing them. In an article for the MIT Sloan Management review, Eric McNully, director of research and professional programmes at the National Preparedness Leadership Initiative at Harvard University asserts that leadership development is failing because it’s a holdover from the industrial era. The current paradigm in development is too dependent on molding people into standard traits, and it’s not working.
Much like the nature of work and education have evolved, the changes in leadership development are being driven by the knowledge-based digital economy. The new school of thought says to throw out the blueprint. Instead, McNully and other suggest first attending to the person to develop leaders who a grounded in their core values, aspirations and principles.
McNully notes:
“With that solid foundation coupled with acquired wisdom, it is possible to more confidently survey the situation and deploy the behaviors most likely to lead to your desired outcome.”
This new school of thought is also calling for bold, passionate leaders, and challenges people to lead from a place of purpose and conviction. Sound familiar? The success and engagement of culture-focused organisations is largely about creating a sense of purpose and passion. We do that by providing an environment with necessary learning, creativity, and innovation to support the kind of leaders we want to emerge?
Just as we have to create the conditions for the culture we want, we have to cultivate an environment where leaders can emerge naturally based on the challenges they face on a day-to-day basis.