Leadership development in the future
Pretty much everyone agrees that the world of work is changing and will keep changing rapidly for some time. That’s why we’re now engaged in a great experiment to find out what kind of leadership development will work in a world that will be different from what we know. Here are two suggestions for how we should do leadership development differently.
Leadership development with assigned mentors
In “Developing Talent through the Power of Mentorship,” Denise Broady of SAP suggests that the explosion of possible development paths calls for more mentoring. Here’s a key quote.
“Yet this flexibility increases the need for additional employee development. That’s why I recommend mentoring as a vehicle for learning. Mentors are typically more seasoned employees who facilitate networked learning experiences, offer career counseling, and act as a role model for other workers.”
“Mentoring” is the magic word here. But what Ms Broady calls mentoring seems a lot like what HR staff can do better, with less scheduling hassles and better knowledge of resources and options. I say that we should let mentoring relationships develop outside the formal structure and assign this work to HR,
Moving leadership development into the workflow
Ron Raque, a Senior Consultant at Right Management, has a different idea. In his post, “Manager as Career Coach? Really?” he suggests that managers should take on a coaching role.
“It’s true – managing is not the easiest job in the world. But it has the potential to be among the most rewarding – for your team, for your organization, and for you. Try on the ‘development coaching hat’ for a while and you might find that if fits pretty comfortably.”
I like this idea, but I suggest that having managers “try on” coaching will not do much. Those who think it’s part of the job will already be doing it, the others won’t see the point. If you want managers to be coaches you have to formally make it part of the job, give them the resources they need, and evaluate their performance. Anything less is just hope or a suggestion.
