Leadership Development for the Rest of Us

Kelly Rietow, Principal, Roo Solutions

Executive MBAs, the Center for Creative Leadership, Adventure Team Building Excursions – this sounds nice, but is not exactly realistic if you aren’t among the Fortune 1000.  “The rest of us” need to be a bit more creative and pragmatic in our approach to developing bench strength within our organizations.

The 4th annual ShareOn Forum addressed just this topic.  40 business leaders and four phenomenal panelists were invited to address this pressing business issue during a panel discussion followed by a Conversation Café.  Leaders in small business, manufacturing, education, nonprofit and service industries were all represented.  Each participant added his or her unique perspective and a truly impressive depth of knowledge.  

Key themes for leadership development success for “the rest of us” include:

• Simplicity
• Fit with culture and values
• Alignment with business goals

With a focus on simplicity, one group came up with the “ABCD’s….and sometimes Es”of Leadership Development.

• Assess:  Begin with assessing the organization and the talent within it. Calibrate your assumptions with other leaders in the company – they may have a different perspective.  Assessment tools such as 360s, the Management-Transition-Leadership Skills Assessment and 9-box talent grids can be helpful in this process.
• Be honest:  People excel in different areas.   Once you understand staff strengths and talent gaps (see Assess), be honest with yourself and them about what skills can reasonably be developed. If you star Programmer wants to code all day and not manage people, why waste the money sending her to leadership training?  Project management or communicating with non-IT people may be of more benefit to her and the organization.Leadership Development - for “the rest of us”
• Consistently communicate:  Beyond half-day workshops, coaches and newsletters, leadership should be emphasized and reinforced at all levels in the organization.  Leaders do not necessarily have a fancy title or an office. The values, competencies and particular “brand” of leadership must be visible and celebrated.  Further, leaders’ daily behaviors must reflect the leadership competencies you are trying to instill in your leaders.  
• Develop Direction:  Development programs must reinforce and support business objectives; otherwise it is just a nice day out of the office with a box lunch.  Organizations must move beyond development “programs” to development embedded in the organization and tailored to the individual.
• And sometimes E…Evaluate – progress, results, validity of programs.  Business needs change and learning approaches and content must also Evolve with the organization.

Our discussions led to several leadership development questions that will spur a yearlong research study and white paper on this topic.  The results will be shared at next year’s forum.  If your organization has an interest in participating in this study, please contact Kelly Rietow.

Comments

[Jonena Relth]

Hi Kelly, Thanks for sharing. I would be interested in learning more about the Forum and white paper.

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