Development is an ongoing journey which must start early if you want to effect behavioural change, says Paul Surridge
If there is a criticism to be levelled at leadership development programmes in the past it is that they have tended to be quite reactive, often jumping on the bandwagon of what’s in vogue (think of the proliferation of unconscious bias training or the recent trend of moving in-person development to online without making the required adaptations).
Evidence indicates that if you’re looking to improve a person’s leadership capability, this approach simply won’t work. One-off leadership development interventions don’t bring about lasting change. If there is toxic leadership in your organisation, you’re not going to change those entrenched behaviours in the classroom. You may already have the wrong leaders in place, so of course the simple answer is to hire the right person in the first place!
Let’s look at how you can generate maximum ROI. In my experience, those organisations that are best at developing their leaders have a clear vision as to who they want to be and how they plan on getting there. They have a core set of values which are clearly aligned across their learning programmes, selection processes, performance management etc. If organisational values aren’t anchored in this way, you’ll get a mismatch and risk hiring the wrong people.
Leadership journey
We often assume that leadership development is the preserve of senior executives. This is a mistake as you need to develop leaders earlier in their careers, which is when all the key stretch assignments will add so much value to future readiness. Future leaders can identify and work on the right behaviours, prepare and build that leadership capability ahead of time, not when it’s too late which is often the case. Senior leaders too can be prepared for major organisational changes that you know are going to happen in the future.
It is those companies that recognise that leadership development is a journey and ongoing process that reap the most benefits. Increasingly, the most progressive organisations I speak to design programmes that reflect real world scenarios that link back directly to the actual work the individual is doing. If that participants cannot see the impact it’s having on their job, the impact is severely diminished. It then becomes a box ticking exercise. So you need to focus on immersive, experiential learning that will enable the person to apply what they’ve learnt.
The other point is that you need to have differentiated development for each individual. Particularly at senior levels, leadership development needs to be personal thing, whether it’s for an external hire or internal promotion. You can’t put a cohort of leaders on the same programme. Some will derive more benefit than others, many will gain nothing at all. You also need to know who will benefit the most for the training yet many organisation still reply upon a sheep-dip approach.
The power of coaching
Personalised coaching can be a great intervention, both for individuals and teams to support people in recognising where they need to change. It can help leaders consciously reflect and build self-awareness, so they can look back on successes and failures, the impact of past decisions, to see what they could have done differently. This can then be applied to future situations and the reflect, learn, apply cycle starts over.
But leaders must want to be coached. Not everyone will want to do it. Often an individual can go through the coaching process because they feel it’s the right thing to do but they have no desire to change. In which case you’ve probably got the wrong leader! Transitional coaching can also be hugely beneficial, particularly in helping external hires navigate a different organisational context, as
can peer-to-peer mentoring, for example a ‘buddying’ system, will typically work in tandem with coaching to further enhance leaders development.
Collaborative thinking
The other important point to make is that the CEO needs to be closely involved in any senior leadership development programme. Building high performing teams requires strong executive sponsorship or the message is that it’s a HR driven exercise. The best CEOs recognise that their input and time is critical. Being invested in the process will boost leadership development outcomes. Focusing on team cohesion, especially during difficult economic times, is a growing trend, which I think is absolutely vital for the growth of strong, united leadership teams.
Let me be clear. There is value in one-off classroom-led leadership training. You’re investing in your people, which is great for retention. The individual benefits in terms of broadening their networks, sharing best practice and new thinking with diverse colleagues. But when I speak to execs about the most beneficial development they received, they mention key experiences such as turnarounds, acquisitions, merging cultures etc. The real value of any intervention is in ‘learning by doing’.
So, drive behavioural leadership change by stretching, challenging and allowing time for reflection. That will provide the real world development that will benefit individual and business performance.
Paul Surridge is managing partner at Target Leadership Consulting www.targetleadership.co.uk https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulsurridge
First published in People Management: https://www.peoplemanagement.co.uk/article/1828433/maximise-return-investment-leadership-development