Leadership Development - beating off the crunch

Leadership is really under the spotlight at the moment. Gordon Brown has been getting some negative reviews of his performance over the past months and Henry Paulson is both a hero and a villain.

So how can we help our leaders and managers develop? If we can help to equip them for times like these then that can only be a win/win situation.

Training Zone have some interesting thoughts on how good leadership development is a vital tool to beating off the crunch.

"So what kind of development is most likely to enable that transfer of learning into practice? There are no guarantees that it will always work, but the kind of characteristics of a development programme that are most likely to produce real performance changes are:

1. Clearly defined learning outcomes that are linked to the identified needs of the learners and to organisational goals.

2. Flexible learning that fits into the working practices of the organisation and its business cycle.

3. Short, focused learning programmes that enable flexibility yet are part of a larger programme that has a coherent structure and inter-relationships between the elements.

4. Structures that encourage learning transfer and performance change.

5. Mechanisms for assessment that focus on application and performance."

Wally Brock also has some interesting advice on leadership learning on the job:

"Yet, despite recognition of its importance, leadership development is going nowhere fast. Confidence in leaders has declined steadily over the past eight years, and most leaders are not satisfied with their organization’s development offerings."

There's lots of good material about leadership development and succession planning in the Summary and the whole report. There's material on the differences between line executives and HR executives, too. Each of them blames the other for the problems with leadership development."

Finally Art Petty has some great advice on Teaching a Senior Team to Dance with Leadership Development. There are 8 Steps to the dance so I suggest you put your best foot forward.

All L&D professionals have an opportunity to really engage with the business to show how they can really add value and support. Are you up to it?