Talent is not enough. That’s my big take-away from the Aon Hewitt study, “Top Companies for Leaders.” The last version of this particular survey (not to be confused with the Hay Group’s “Best Companies for Leadership“) was published two years ago.
If you were thinking that you could just, magically, find the most talented people on the planet, hire them, and turn them loose, think again. The reason that the companies on this list have many effective leaders in their pipelines is that they work at it. Here’s what we can take out of this study.
Great leadership development starts at the top. All the top company CEOs participate in their company’s leadership development programs. That compares with only 62 percent at other companies. The key word here is “participate.”
Leadership development is a cultural value. Managers at all levels are expected to identify and nurture future leaders. Those that do are praised and rewarded. Performance evaluations include evaluation of behaviors that foster leadership development.
Top companies evaluate their programs. All of the top companies evaluate their succession planning and leadership development. Less than half of other companies do that.
Top companies measure performance. Ninety-two percent of the top companies measure performance on leadership development. For other companies, the figure is 60 percent.
Nothing here is a surprise. The difference between top companies for leadership and others doesn’t lie in the area of “knowing what to do.” What separates top performers in this field as in many others is that they know what to do, and they find a way to do it over and over and over while they measure their performance.
