Features

Published August 2008

High-Octane Leadership Development

Walt McFarland, Brian Vander May and Lori Zukin

Demographic realities and lack of long-term leadership development programs are leaving many organizations with a dearth of candidates ready to take on senior roles. Accelerated leadership development strategies may help organizations fill the void.

Senior 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.

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Leadership and Personality

Brian Summerfield

When developing an organization’s future leaders, it’s important to acknowledge the fact that the enterprise usually benefits if individuals are true to their own traits.

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