The Future of Leadership Development – Part II

My last post pointed out the reasons for a new approach to leadership development.  In networked, global organizations the need for a more flexible and less hierarchical development methodology is important.

Over the past 2-3 years, organizations have been experimenting. Everything from the use of e-learning to the recent adoption of social networks has been tried, but little is really known about what is delivering the best results. There is also very little that is really new or different.  The packaging may be different (e.g. on-line instead on in-class) but the content is the same.  I am not sure “new” or “different” is needed, but it seems logical that it is. The emerging business world will need leaders who can deal with ambiguity, lack of quantitative data, and who have less control over people. These traits have not been leadership selection criteria or training criteria in the past.

So leadership success will not only require new training but new recruiting and assessment criteria, as well.  We are really looking at hiring and training guerilla leaders, not leaders of traditional organizations.

At the Future of Talent Institute we are conducting research to find out what is producing leaders who are both comfortable in these much less traditional and structured organizations and who are also developing successful business strategies and executing them well. The U.S. military may be leading in this, but I am sure other organizations are making progress, as well.

Here are some of the approaches that are being tried with my thoughts about each. I would appreciate anyone commenting who has tried any of these and how successful or not they have been. If you would be willing to be interviewed or talk to me about your experiences, please let me know.

Emerging Leadership Development Practices

1. Formal training in cross-cultural issues and language: Valuable but not innovative. Can be achieved better by actual experience living and working as a local in a foreign country (e.g. like a Peace Corp Volunteer). Time consuming and rarely successful as a classroom activity.
2. Leadership Institutes: Nothing new – still a traditional approach with classes, instructors, and case studies.
3. Role Playing: Useful when carefully orchestrated and coached.
4. Coach/Mentor Programs: Again, useful when the proper mentors/coaches are in place. Hard to find enough of these people. Some organizations are tapping into recently retired leaders as mentors, which may be a good practice if the mentor is open to new approaches.
5. Book clubs/Discussion Groups: These have been used for years and are useful, but break no new ground and are limited by the quality of facilitator.
6. E-Learning courses and on-line discussions: Very useful in getting dispersed people to share and learn. Good way to capture information for sharing later. Still an emerging area with lots left to learn about how to use the Internet effectively.
7. Social Networks: Similar to e-learning. Great way to connect people and for sharing information. Leaders in one place can solicit ideas from others somewhere else. Great for same-time learning and experiential sharing.
8. Social (Value)  Network Analysis: Very promising. Teaches leaders how to identify who is actually producing results and where value is coming from. This includes not only employees but vendors, suppliers, and others who may be outside the formal organization.
9. Developing skills in looking for patterns, discovering connections and linkages in disparate data sources and making inferences from less than quantitative information:  This is a promising and exciting area of research that the U.S. military is exploring. It holds promise for medical investigations, exploration of space, and counter-terrorism.
10. Collaboration and Group Decision-Making: Another interesting area where both leadership selection and the development of skills will be important.

I am sure we will uncover many other practices as we do our discovery and research.  What is most interesting to me is that none of these skills are part of traditional leadership or business school curriculums.

Tagged as: development, Education, leadership