Following a recent presentation to individuals in the Not-For-Profit arena on "Creating A Culture of Leadership Development in Your Organization," I was approached by some enthusiastic attendees who loved the content, but expressed frustration over the seeming unwillingness of their top leaders to focus on this issue. 

During the discussion, I heard the following comments:

"Leadership development is viewed as expensive."

"When we point out the need for and potential benefits from strengthening our leadership practices, the typical response is that leadership development is not central to our mission."

"We are so busy chasing small issues, we don’t have time to focus on people topics."

I appreciated the openness of the individuals and was left wondering what it might take to help top leaders everywhere recognize once and for all that LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT DOES NOT HAVE TO BE EXPENSIVE!

My core message in these presentations is that there is a strong correlation between an organization’s effective identification, development and retention of talent (especially leadership talent) and performance.  Good management practices of which leadership development is one of them, ultimately ends up delivering the following dividends:

-Employees develop a stronger sense of purpose and tend to relate better to core values and the organization’s mission.

-Employee satisfaction goes up and that translates directly to improved customer/stakeholder satisfaction.

-Identification, development and retention practices are institutionalized, improving the ability of a firm to gain benefits from dedicated high-performers. 

-Organizations that have strong management and leadership development practices tend to be organizations where feedback is delivered in a constructive and timely manner and where people at all levels are comfortable conducting candid conversations on the big issues of the firm.

-Another characteristic of firms that "get" leadership development, is an environment that encourages experimentation and risk-taking, often leading to widespread innovation in processes and approaches. 

It’s hard to argue that the above outcomes are constructive.  The fascinating and frustrating central issue is, it does not cost anything in training, courses, expensive seminars or workshops, to realize these powerful benefits.  It simply requires the leaders of an organization to develop a collective consciousness about the import of strengthening their talent and leadership development culture, and then consistent application of what Rich Petro and I describe as The Nine Components of Effective Leadership Development (from the article; Gauging Your Firm’s Leadership Culture Index, published in 2007.)  These critical practices cost nothing but time and attention.  It’s time and attention that you cannot afford to skip.

The Nine Components of Effective Leadership Development (or how to strengthen your firm’s leadership development effectiveness without breaking your budget.)

  1. Make early identification of leaders the norm.
  2. Ensure that top management is actively engaged in leadership development.
  3. Provide clear performance expectations to all leaders about leadership development.
  4. Make succession planning routine.
  5. Develop a culture that encourages and teaches effective feedback practices.
  6. Prepare individual development plans for all associates.
  7. Call  out  leadership development as a line-item in  your strategic plan.
  8. Actively engineer assignments for developmental purposes.
  9. Provide access to senior managers as coaches and mentors.

The out-of-pocket dollars required to implement The Nine Components?  $0.  The return: priceless!

I can hear the hue and cry of how time-consuming and distracting it would be to implement the above.  My answer would echo the philosophy that I take from many of the comments and postings of Leadership Development expert, Wally Bock.  These are the supervisory discussions that leaders need to be having all of the time, every-day.

My perspective: You cannot afford not to have these discussions.  Otherwise, someone will be eating your organizational lunch.  You will still be hungry.

Start the dialog with your team today!