Leadership Development Investments

In act III of Lord Darlington, Oscar Wilde says that a cynic is someone “who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.” Today, he might define a C-suite executive that way.

How else can you explain companies who act like leadership development is just another cost to be contained and controlled? That’s what cheap, short-sighted companies do. Great companies are different.

Leadership development is what great companies do

Great companies, large and small, have always developed their own leaders. In fact, in the case of the great “academy” companies like GE or Pepsi, they’ve developed leaders for a lot of other companies, too. Cheap, short-sighted companies figure they can buy what they want when they need it

Leadership development is an investment great companies make

Great companies imagine leadership development as an investment. When you invest in something you work to maximize its value. Cheap, short-sighted companies imagine that leadership development is a cost, so it makes sense that they try to pay less for what they think is the minimum effective dose.

Leadership development takes more than money

Great companies understand that leadership development takes more than money. It takes the time and attention of managers at every level. Cheap, short-sighted companies think that executive time is better spent concocting brilliant strategy and controlling costs.

Great companies play the long game

Great companies know that investments in leadership development don’t show up for years, possibly decades. They plant the trees that will provide shade for future leaders. Cheap, short-sighted companies can’t see beyond the next quarter.

More Resources

Here are two excellent articles that sparked the thinking that resulted in this post.

From Sharlyn Lauby: The Impending Leadership Crisis

“I have to think if companies aren’t willing to pay employees more, then are they really going to invest training dollars? The same study said organizations are looking heavily at their contingent workforce as a staffing strategy to avoid hiring full-time workers.”

From Peter Cappelli: What employers really want? Workers they don’t have to train

“The real issue is that employers’ expectations — for the skills of new graduates, for what they must invest in training, and for how much they need to pay their employees — have grown increasingly out of step with reality.”

Wally Bock

Wally Bock is a coach, a writer and President of Three Star Leadership.