What Best in Class Companies Do To Grow Leaders

• Author: Eric Jackson
• Posted: September 18, 2007
• Category: Talent Management
• Tags: No Tags
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Part 1

There have been numerous Fortune, Forbes, and BusinessWeek stories in the last year citing the importance of growing leaders within your organization, especially in respect to the demographic shift that will follow the retirement of the baby boomers. Paul Reilly–of the venerable Korn/Ferry–states in the Forbes article (linked above) that over 50% of all C-level execs will retire in the next 5 years.

That begs the question: what are organizations doing to prepare for this difficult challenge? In every crisis lies opportunity. And certainly, this immovable fact is good news for the Korn/Ferrys, Monsters, Jobsters, and Recruiting.coms of the world, as it suggests an increasing need from Corporate America for recruiting top talent.

However, the best organizations do not over-rely on recruiting firms to “fix” their lack-of-leadership problem. They look inside and set up processes and programs which ensure that their “Leadership Funnel” is as full as their “sales funnel.”

Of course, everyone pays homage to GE, when talking about leadership development. Yet, very few actually do a great job to coach, mentor, and develop top talent.

Here are some quick tips, based on our work with different organizations, on what the best companies do to ensure an adequate supply of leaders for years to come:

Leadership Development happens at multiple levels within the organization, not just below the C-Level.
We all like short cuts. Yet, we know that, in important areas, we can’t take short cuts. Developing an adequate supply of leaders is a long-term investment. The best companies understand that and work at bringing their people along no matter the level of the organization — from entry-level to the C-Suite.

Assess where leaders are at today to measure where they will be tomorrow.
You can’t improve something if you don’t measure it. Doing a leadership assessment at the front-end of any development program gives you a baseline to measure someone’s development — and hold them accountable if they don’t develop. 360s are great as a tool, but the most reliable measurement of a leader’s strengths and weaknesses comes from a process called an “Assessment Center” which uses multiple methods (including case studies, work simulations, and behavior-based interviews) to measure someone’s leadership performance and potential.

One thing that surprised me when I started to “coach” “high-potential” leaders is how many of them were hungry to know where they ranked relative to other leaders out there. Most people work for one company for a long time - sometimes 10, 15, or 20 years. They lose sight of their “market value” relative to other execs. Being able to tell them that they are in the top quartile on “strategic orientation” relative to others is very interesting to them, often raising their confidence levels. By contrast, it can be an eye-opener when they are in the bottom quartile on a number of important leadership dimensions.

In Part 2 we will develop an Action Plan, so you won’t want to miss it!