Who are the potential leaders in your organisation?

Although the benefits of developing leadership potential are widely accepted, many companies struggle to identify the right individuals. Jeff Austin shares insight into spotting and developing talent and offers advice on should be expected from leadership training providers.

Effective leadership development not only minimises the disruptions and loss of continuity associated with the unexpected departure of key management and executive personnel, it also helps to retain and motivate staff at all levels, by equipping them with a clear sense of where they, together with the organisation, are heading.

The concept also promotes an organisation’s sustainability by minimising internal leadership gaps and ensuring that transitions between key personnel proceed trouble-free. Ultimately, the internal development of leaders allows for a more unified and consistent company vision and culture to be maintained. In addition, implementing a leadership development programme needn’t be an expensive exercise. In fact, when compared to the costs associated with employee churn and hiring talent, it makes clear financial sense for organisations to develop leaders internally.

Courageous risk takers or conservatives?
Many forward-thinking organisations struggle with the practical challenges regarding identifying and empowering the right individuals. Before setting up an internal leadership development programme, it is vital that the organisation’s desired ‘type of leader’ is confirmed and so developed in partnership with the executive team.

The fact that there are scores of available leadership styles is, surprisingly, often overlooked. It is the responsibility of the executive team to determine whether leaders who are courageous risk takers, or conservative decision makers, are best suited to the organisation? Also, will choosing to grow customer sophistication require the development of a very specific blend of leaders – these questions should be considered right at the beginning and used to inform the focus of programme.

Strategic thinkers
The ability to think strategically is a common leadership trait, which embraces the capacity to weigh up the potential impact, company-wide, of a complex decision.
So, to examine an individual’s ability to think strategically, opt for one of the following simple techniques.

1. The easiest and most formal is to encourage staff to submit proposals outlining their take on the status of business – what it will be, and should be, in five years time. These proposals will provide a clear indication of the way in which they think and how well they understand the relationships between various business units within the organisation.

2. The second technique is less formal and more time intensive, but can be far more insightful if managed correctly. It involves interviewing the candidate on a one-on-one basis, presenting him/her with a complex scenario as well as discussing it. An example to ascertain how they understand, measure, and weigh the effects of changes in the organisation, would be to include them in the budgeting process and ask how they would, for instance, realise 10% savings in the next fiscal year.

Effective communicators
Communicating effectively is a skill that every leader should posses in order to ensure their strategic vision is clearly understood and implemented accordingly.
Perhaps the best and easiest way of identifying this skill is to incorporate a mentoring channel within the leadership development programme. The regular discussions about tactical and strategic issues which mentors have with their assignees will enable them to assess and develop their communication skills accurately. Another potential approach is to use peer evaluation to find out how an individual’s communication skills are perceived by others.

Relationship builders
Customer surveys are also an excellent way of identifying individuals within an organisation, who are able to build and maintain effective relationships, as well as bring out the best in others. It is, however, essential to ensure that they are able to develop such relationships while delivering against their assigned tasks or KPAs.
Implementing internal support groups may also be useful for detecting leadership potential. For example, if everyone within the accounts department really likes ‘manager X’, it is probably safe to assume that X has built effective relationships and manages colleagues well.

Passionate people
It might seem too intangible to identify easily, but passion or enthusiasm is an important leadership ingredient. To capture this quality, it requires active appraisal across an organisation’s internal review mechanisms and staff loyalty programmes, and not just the leadership development programme.

The training provider
When it comes to selecting the right leadership development training provider, it almost goes without saying that the supplier needs to demonstrate a genuine understanding of your leadership vision, particular business challenges and corporate culture. There are, however, a couple of less obvious considerations that also need to be appraised during the selection process.

The first concerns the development of training programmes. Can the provider customise the training in order for it to encompass international best practices in leadership development as well as the specific, unique needs of your organisation, from reinforcing bench strength to team building?

Generic leadership development training is not as effective as a tailored training programme, since it is not aligned to specific strategic or operational needs. In such instances, some potential leaders may struggle to apply the theories learnt in their host organisations. Consideration also needs to be given to how the training provider implements its leadership training programmes. Does the provider employ the latest methods of Outcomes Based Education (OBE) to ensure efficient, measurable knowledge and skills transfer? Is the firm versatile enough to adapt to other complementary programmes employed by your organisation, including loyalty schemes and mentoring initiatives?

One final consideration is whether the training provider has systems in place that will allow you to track and measure the success of the leadership development process. Can the provider report back on all activity and ‘close the loop’?

Executive sponsorship
Ultimately, though, a leadership training programme will only be successful if it is aligned with the organisation’s overall strategy – an aspect not for the responsibility of the training provider. From the start, senior company executives need to be actively involved in the programme to ensure the vision matches the firm’s unique leadership needs.
Executive sponsorship is also required to ensure the rationale and importance of the programme is clearly communicated to participants. Employees need to understand why they are being ‘developed’, their role in the process and the expected outcomes. Open communication of this nature can also help reduce the churn of leaders under development, as they will have a clearer picture of how they fit into the organisation’s future.

As a final observation, best practice evidence suggests that the organisation would also benefit from integrating the leadership development programme into its Balanced Scorecard (or other performance management system), since this will ensure sustained monitoring of its effectiveness and focus.

So, the many benefits of growing internal talent are compelling enough to convince more and more companies to commence with such programmes, but unless the concept is recognised not only as a core organisational goal, but also as the responsibility of every department – not just HR – leadership development is unlikely to deliver on its many tantalising promises.

About the author
Jeff Austin is managing director of Siyandza Skills Development. An expert in workforce management and contact centre optimisation and a graduate of Montana State University, the US, Austin was invigorated and inspired by the enthusiasm of South Africans to develop themselves, which led to his moving here in 2004. Prior to starting Siyandza, he worked with several other large companies.

This article, or a modified version thereof, first appeared in the April 2008 issue of HR Highway magazine.