Canadian Business Magazine recently published an article on leadership development titled: “Leaders in Leadership.” Here’s the opening paragraph.
“Canadian Business, in partnership with Knightsbridge Human Capital Solutions, asked Canadian executives to name the organizations that are best at developing the next generation of leaders. Here’s what they told us.”
The article lists five companies and the reasons that respondents named them among the “best” at leadership development. There are lots of ideas about excellent practices packed into this article so it’s worth a full read. Here’s a quick overview.
TD Bank Financial has a pair of leadership development programs. Executives, including the CEO Ed Clark, participate in “Build for the Future” which is a combination leadership development and strategy program. There’s also “Build for the Future Pipeline” for high potential leaders just below executive level.
At RBC Financial, leadership development is the responsibility of every leader. Talent management and development goals are part of every leader’s variable compensation plan.
Research in Motion (RIM) has two co-CEOs, Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie. Talent development at RIM aims to help “people leaders” build skills at leading teams, but also at one-on-one leadership. The core program is a five-day program that’s spread out over several months.
GE Canada is known for using a combination of training, development, succession planning and mentoring to help leaders develop a well-rounded skill set. The article uses the example of GE Canada’s current CEO, Elyse Allan and the various positions she held on the way to becoming CEO in 2004.
The final company is Telus, Canada’s second-largest communications company. The executives mentioned their “proven transitional capability” and a development program that begins with the recruitment process.
Read this article for the ideas that are in it and for the ideas that you’ll find when you dig further into the practices of the companies. As you do that, beware of another finding mentioned in the article.
“In a Canadian Business survey of 240 Canadian executives — vice-president level and above — 91% said strong leadership contributes to an organization’s competitive advantage. But only 60% responded that developing leadership capacity was currently a priority for their organization.”
