Happy Holidays -- and Happy Leadership Development in the New Year!
Occasionally, we run across an "oldie but goodie" article that causes us to stop in our tracks to reflect. We found the attached Human Resource Planning article to be just such an experience. Entitled "Leadership Development: Past, Present, and Future," it examines where leadership development has been in the past 30 years and where it is heading today.
The rapidity of change in leadership
development methods struck us (or perhaps it was how little we remember about leadership development approaches in the '80's)! Also, we found a variety of incisive suggestions, and wanted to highlight two of them here:
1. The authors identify 360 feedback as "so pervasive" as to be considered "one of the most notable management innovations" in recent memory. They offer five lessons for using 360 that are particularly helpful:
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- 360 feedback should not be a stand-alone event. In addition to assessment, there needs to be development planning and follow-up activities.
- Boss support is critical for the process itself, as well as for buy-in for the recipient's specific developmental goals that stem from the feedback.
- The 360 feedback process works best if it starts with executives at the top of an organization and cascades downward throughout the organization.
- Shoddy administration of a 360-degree feedback process can be fatal.
- The timing of the process needs to account for other organizational realities that could dilute or confound its impact.
2. A thread throughout the article is the criticality of thinking about leadership and leadership development as collaborative efforts. We often see organizations focusing on developing individual leaders (e.g., though high potential programs or one-off coaching). The authors make the point that, while individual capabilities certainly matter, providing developmental assessments and experiences that "focus on the interactions of both leaders and collaborators, instead of focusing only on the competencies of the leaders" is important to build team leadership skills and competencies. Team experiences such as executive alignment, action learning, or teamwork assessments are examples of ways to make leadership development more team-oriented and hands-on.
There is much else that is thought-provoking in this article, including the role of competencies in helping organizations select and develop talent, as well as the increasing focus on leaders' character and integrity.
enVision.360 for Executives
enVision.360 for Managers
enVision Alignment Process
