Chief Learning Officer - August 2008 - (Page 21)

S enior leaders in many organizations are facing a crisis of leadership. According to a study by The Conference Board, approximately 40 percent of the nation’s workforce — nearly 64 million workers — will be eligible for retirement by 2010. In addition, 73 percent of baby boomers give younger supervisors low ratings with regard to being supportive of their success, according to the Families and Work Institute. Younger managers and would-be supervisors who are not properly trained to ﬁll leadership roles and manage their staffs could cause serious problems for many organizations. When a growing need for new leaders is met by lack of employees skilled and experienced enough to take on these roles, the result can be haphazard, disorganized or stiﬂed growth — or worse, no growth at all. The greater the talent gap, the less able an organization is to quickly and effectively address the demands of a fast-paced world. However, by the time such a leadership drought becomes evident, many organizations have difﬁculty developing employees rapidly enough to meet the need for both mid-level and senior positions. Accelerating leadership development is one way to ﬁll the talent pipeline. By working with the right candidates through intensive experiential learning, critique and feedback, leadership skills can be introduced in a condensed period of time. When carefully targeted toward key skill sets, this accelerated development can cultivate the leadership competencies to separate candidates from the rank-and-ﬁle and increase the speed to proﬁciency to ﬁll ready-leader voids. Through years of working with many organizations in ﬁlling their leadership pipelines, Booz Allen Hamilton identiﬁed the following ﬁve factors that, when applied together, can accelerate leadership development, ensuring that high-potential talent is given the foundation to achieve a qualitatively different level of performance at the end of the development initiative. Factor 1: Leadership development outcomes tied to organizational priorities. To quickly address an organization’s leadership challenges, development programs must be the logical outcome of an overarching and dynamic human capital strategy. That strategy needs to be tied to the organization’s strategic priorities. As the pace of change quickens, the question “Where are we going?” is increasingly important to every organization. Accelerated leadership development may be considered “just in time” succession planning because the need for it often results from lack of long-term and systematic succession planning. Organizations in growth or transition mode also may ﬁnd themselves in need of accelerated leadership development, when candidates must be developed quickly to address new organizational needs. Because accelerated leadership development is inextricably linked to succession priorities, it needs to focus on the desired outcome, requiring a larger, systematic view of the organization and its short-term and long-term needs. The program may target an immediate need, requiring a speciﬁc capability, or a general need for a cadre of strong leaders. Factor 2: Identiﬁcation of participants based on multifaceted criteria. At times, seemingly highpotential employees fail to deliver at the next level. This may be because the individual initially was motivated but did not have the skills or ability to be successful. Or perhaps he or she was a high performer unwilling to take on more responsibility. Since accelerated leadership development is a signiﬁcant investment, how can the organization ensure it invests in the right people? Organizational thinking about leadership candidates needs to consider factors beyond current performance to include a multifaceted assessment of potential. A 2005 study by the Corporate Leadership Council found that high-potential employees should have the ability to perform at the next level, as well as high levels of organizational engagement and aspiration to ascend. Assessment CLO FORUM centers and objective tests In the Leadership Development are useful in measuring abilsection of our online discussion ity, engagement and aspiraboard, we’re asking readers tion, and are more effective what they’re doing to prepare when paired with self-nomiemployees to assume high-level nation processes and strong roles and responsibilities. Offer performance management your thoughts on this topic at systems that are tied to indiwww.clomedia.com/clo-forum. vidual development plans. However, before the key behavioral criteria can be set, the baseline competency models must be right. There is a growing belief that current leadership competency models no longer adequately predict performance. The dawn of the global economy has introduced new leadership factors, including systems thinking, dealing with signiﬁcant complexity, the importance of deep collaboration and boundary-spanning skills, which older models either don’t identify or properly weight. Using multifaceted criteria for identifying high-potential employees is effective, but only when organizations know the skill sets and abilities they are seeking. Factor 3: Development activities customized to meet individual developmental needs. The results of the selection process often will shine a spotlight on key areas for individual development. Some candiChief Learning Ofﬁcer • August 2008 • www.clomedia.com 21 http://www.clomedia.com/clo-forum http://www.clomedia.com

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Chief Learning Officer - August 2008 Editor's Letter Contents Connections Business Impact Trends Best Practices Effectiveness High-Octane Leadership Development Leadership and Personality CLO Profile Discussion Groups: Harvesting Value from Real-World Experiences Kimpton 2.0: Discussion on the Web Learning Olympics: Development Through Competition Bypassing the Obstacles to Change Listen Up: A How-To-Guide for Podcasting University of Toyota: A Success Story in Podcast Implementation What Stinks About Webinars? Webinars for Learning Professionals Case Study Business Intelligence Advertisers' Index Editorial Resources In Conclusion

Chief Learning Officer - August 2008

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