Whether our organizations are trending toward growth or navigating through an economic downturn as a result of a pandemic, we look to leaders to lead the way. We expect them to have the ability to safely steer us around the pitfalls and perils of the business landscape. It’s not surprising that organizations in the United States invested $166 billion in leadership development in 2020 (and not a significant shift from previous, pre-pandemic years).
With great investment comes greater expectations. Each year we invest in our leaders by running them through blue ribbon, best-in-class leadership development programs. Then we expect them to translate what they’ve learned into sustainable, everyday leadership practices that rocket their teams (and ultimately, our companies) to success.The data, however, paints a very different reality.
According to Harvard Business Publishing’s 2018 The State of Leadership Development Report, two-thirds of managers claim they didn’t improve after participating in leadership development programs. Robert Brinkerhoff, in his book Telling Training’s Story, reports that less than 30 percent of leadership skills are still in use 6 to 12 months after training. With so much effort and investment behind them – and an entire industry built to support them – why do so many leaders still feel like they’re flailing in their positions?
If we’re honest about the current state of leadership development, despite investment in their potential and progress, most leaders are sent through programs that fail to fully set them up for success. To understand why this is – and most importantly, how to fix it – we have to consider a few of the underlying issues that resulted in limited sustainable leadership practices.
Leadership vs. Leading
Organizations invest in “leadership,” hoping their people will “lead.” The reality is that the former rarely results in the latter, and here’s why: Leadership is the state or position of being a leader with the capacity to lead; leading is the act of exercising that leadership. Many of today’s leadership development programs focus on developing “leadership” as a target to pursue or a title to hold. Leadership development then becomes little more than an aspiration or hope, a goal to arrive at someday in the future.
Leading, however, focuses on the present act of exercising leadership capacity. When we place individuals into positions of leadership, we assume that leading will automatically follow. But rarely are individuals actually taught how to actively lead. I’ve heard this dilemma echoed by countless HR and business executives whose frustrations can largely be summarized by a single statement: “I need my leaders to LEAD… NOW!”
We need to equip leaders to lead now, to lead more consistently, and to exercise leadership habits with intention as part of their daily functional practice. So how do we do that?
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One-Size-Fits-All Doesn’t Drive the Right Business Outcomes
Your organization has a unique business strategy. Its Founders, Presidents and CEOs spent a lot of time on the specific details and factors involved in making the business successful. Unfortunately, many leadership development initiatives focus on building the competency of a leader with little regard for an organization’s strategy. We know the business world doesn’t operate in a vacuum, and yet many companies offer their leaders standard, academically-backed skills development programs that are too far removed from the specificities of the real world and their very real organization. And while they waste time and money, the globe is still turning, the market is still alive, and their competitors are still seeking to capture their market share.
Winning organizations know better. For those companies who want their leaders to drive the right business results, they develop their leaders parallel to the company’s mission, strategy, and the unique ecosystem in which it operates.
Creating Habits to Anchor Leadership Skills
The majority of well-intentioned leadership development initiatives on the market tend to focus on soft skills: conflict management, communication, feedback, emotional intelligence, etc. Make no mistake, these competencies are vital, and research has shown them to be critical skills for high-performing leaders. But once you help your leaders develop soft skills, how do they operationalize them into their daily habits and personal leadership styles? Most development programs don’t touch this, and many organizations make the mistake of assuming their leaders will know how to anchor these important skills to their behaviors.
Consider this: high-performing companies use standard operating procedures to make sure their functions are performing at their best. Finance and Accounting teams regularly review profit & loss statements, balance sheets and key metrics. Sales teams review forecasting and customer relationship management (CRM) systems to track progress and identify when to course correct. These are objective, and oftentimes scheduled, ways to ensure behaviors are being consistently performed as expected to drive business results.
If we want leaders to drive results aligned with business strategy, we must employ standard operating procedures for leadership skills.
Leadership Development That Works
Leadership is the most important driver of successful companies, but too many lack a method to systematize leadership skills into daily practice. The discipline of leading has remained abstract, peripheral, and relies largely on a leader’s subjective judgment of when to exercise a competency or skill. Without standard operating procedures for leadership, newly learned leadership skills fail to become habits that stick and become a consistent part of an individual’s style of leading.
At Leaderology we know that each individual, team and department operate within their own unique ecosystems. We assess your organization’s DNA through the lens of S.C.O.P.E.™ – Strategy, Culture, Objectives, Purpose, Ecosystem of Stakeholders – and develop a customized and strategic roadmap for leadership development that drives accountability and increases ownership and performance. Each element of S.C.O.P.E. interacts with every other element, influencing the ways we attempt to maximize the excellence of an individual, team and, ultimately, the entire organization. By starting with your company’s unique characteristics and strategy, we are able to assess and create a custom roadmap for each stakeholder, empowering them to lead in a way that anchors their newly developed skills through coaching and accountability, and develops a more sustainable – and impactful – method of leading.
Set your organization up for success with a leadership development approach that will equip them to lead your people and your company. Interested to learn more about applying S.C.O.P.E. to your organization? Drop us a line and let’s start a conversation.