Korn Ferry is out with another insightful article. The title is “Leadership development: CEOs’ strategic powerhouse.” Here’s the money paragraph.
“Developing leaders from within the organization is a priority for driving change. As Korn Ferry has found through its work with clients across all industries, leadership development can and should be a powerful tool at the CEO’s disposal to advance strategic growth and change. CEOs have relatively few strategic levers to drive real strategic change. The predictable levers include compensation, budgeting, process improvement, increased measurement and accountability, new technologies, reorganization, and revitalized communications. That should make leadership development even more alluring. But to be effective, leadership development needs to be more than aligned with the business strategy—it needs to be part of the strategy.”
Leadership development should be strategic. Great. What does that mean?
Strategic leadership development means that strategy drives choices
One meaning is obvious. If your leadership development is strategic, then your strategy should drive your choices about whom to hire, develop, and retain. Different industries and different companies need people with specific skills, aptitudes, and career desires.
Strategic leadership development means top management attention
Saying that leader development is “strategic” is another way of saying that it’s important. Strategic issues are the ones that top management should pay attention to. In the case of leadership development that means two things.
Top management should model the behavior they want. That sends the most powerful message possible about what behavior is important.
Top management should lavish time and attention on the work of leadership development. The Korn Ferry article reports that “nearly 40% of respondents said they don’t regularly review leadership needs against their business strategy.”
When something is important to us we give it time and attention. Jack Welch has said that he spent up to 50 percent of his time on people issues. How does your top management stack up?
