Building a Company of Great Leaders
Starting from scratch
All successful programs and initiatives for developing leadership talent within
an organization are created for one single purpose: to support important
business needs. These programs are an integral part of running the day-to-day
business of the company. They fuel growth while fulfilling the needs of human
capital and leadership.
Most companies are not sure where to begin, others don't believe they can build
leadership from scratch. Yet others start from scratch, launch costly
initiatives with a variety of programs, but with no real plan to build a system
that will sustain good leadership.
The truth is: great leadership programs are not programs at all. They
are essential processes for driving the business.
Everything in leadership begins and ends with business. A
leadership strategy needs to define how you will support your business strategy.
It is a fundamental part of running the business and needs to run across
selecting, developing, assessing and compensating your leaders.
Identifying critical capabilities
First, you need to identify the critical capabilities you will need in your
leaders so that you realize your long-term business goals. Each organization is
different and these differences will dictate a different and unique competency
model. However, while good processes allow executive teams to assess their needs
and rethink their strategy, they need to be kept in perspective.
A good competency model is a starting place for a dialogue and discussion of
what's required and its sole function should be to add clarity to expectations.
You need to then choose the critical behaviors that will define the success of
your leaders, which will create clarity of what's really important for your
business and industry.
Two factors decide how well a leader fits with his or her role: the business
strategy and the amount of change in the environment.
Business strategy
There is no universal best-leader model that describes ideal leadership
characteristics and strategies. Business strategy can be broadly classified into
two—growth strategy and return strategy. Having a growth strategy means you
pursue profits primarily by expanding sales, while having a return strategy
means you will compete on the basis of having a more efficient organization than
your competitors. Both these strategies require different sets of skills and
capabilities from the leadership team.
Change in the environment
The amount of change an organization will experience during the next few years
can be measured on a scale ranging from transactional to transformational.
Today, the pace of change is predictable and transactional change is only the
first in a series of situations and business environments that show more
dramatic change—like large acquisitions, industry transformations, financial
crises. This kind of transformational change requires leaders with charisma,
great communication capabilities and most importantly, strong vision.
Just like leaders need to have a fit with your business strategy, they also need
to be comfortable with, and capable of dealing with, different degrees of
change.
This is just the first step...
Defining the capabilities required of your leaders is only the first step. To
actually grow and reinforce their capabilities, you need to actually promote
their growth through right sourcing, aligning, developing and rewarding. You
need to identify the gaps between what you have and what you need.
Starting from scratch isn't easy, but it can be done. Sometimes, it's easier to
start from scratch than to dismantle bad processes and then work out a new
strategy.
Finding and developing leaders will become more challenging in the future than
it is today. The future poses new challenges and greater speed and complexity,
but also opportunities to develop leadership capability more effectively. The
great companies of the future will be those who recognize the new challenges
early and respond aggressively with the help of a strong senior team, a focus on
their best talent and doing the right programs the right way.