On January 12, 2012, Chief Executive published “40 Best Companies for Leaders 2012: How Top Companies Excel in Leadership Development.” On the eighteenth, they came out with “10 Best Companies for Leaders: How Focusing on Leadership Development Creates a Competitive Advantage” which went into more detail on the very best of the best at leadership development.
The list itself is fascinating. Six of the ten companies are more than a century old. The youngest is almost forty. That’s impressive, since the “average lifespan of a multinational-Fortune 500 company or equivalent” is forty to fifty years. You could conclude that attention to leadership development and succession planning might have something to do with that longevity.
Three of the CEO’s have been with their company for their entire career. One other, Jeff Immelt, spent a brief time at Proctor and Gamble (#1) before moving to General Electric (#3). In an era with lots of job-hopping, that’s pretty impressive and may say something about the quality of the longer-lived leadership development programs.
When you look at these “top ten” companies in depth there are three red threads that run through the profiles. These top companies give leadership development time and attention and they address leadership issues vertically and horizontally.
Give It Time and Attention
This is nothing new. We’ve said it about top companies for leadership development for years. They make it a priority. Top management gives it time. 3M CEO George Buckley, for example, “spends over a fifth of his time on talent issues and teaches strategy and leadership to executives who meet twice a year.”
Vertical Development Thinking
For many companies, succession planning is something you only pay attention to for your top executives. These companies have a more “hire to retire” approach. At IBM, for example, the company creates “Success Profiles” for all leadership roles and considers both “pipeline identification and development.”
Horizontal Development Thinking
These top ten companies seem to recognize that some leadership roles require deep technical expertise and special leadership practice. At Caterpillar, the Leadership and Technical Development Program (LTDP) includes:
- Product Development
- Manufacturing Engineering
- Metallurgical Engineering
- Welding Engineering
- Supply Chain Management
- Environment, Industrial Health and Safety
I take two thoughts away from this. First, the basics of paying attention, involving key executives, and intertwining development and succession planning are still the way top leadership development companies operate. Second, the major trend is to think more broadly and deeply about talent development than ever before.
