I’ve already identified this as the leading pain point of senior HR executives. This and several future entries will address this subject in more detail.
As Baby Boomers are retiring, employee ranks are thinning, executive layers are disappearing and development budgets are shrinking, the road to executive ascent needs to be shortening. Yet can it? Companies are struggling with this issue every day. Here’s some guidance on how to approach it.
Understanding how to accelerate Leadership Development begins with an understanding of the attributes that make leaders effective. Put another way, the focus is not just to develop leaders, but to develop effective leaders. This makes Leadership Effectiveness the key focus of Accelerated Leadership Development.
Historically, Leadership Effectiveness was easier to understand than it is today. It meant the ability to command and control an organization in a generally authoritative fashion. In today’s world, this concept of power is no longer valid. Organizations increasingly are characterized by highly matrixed structures where traditional authoritative power is highly diffused. Globalization has further contributed to the changing concept of power as diverse political, social and cultural norms must be respected and harnessed for power to work. Finally, modern business concepts recognize the importance of both suppliers and customers as part of an extended enterprise beyond the direct control of the executive.
Leadership Effectiveness in today’s world has three aspects: Personal Effectiveness, Relational Effectiveness and Assertiveness. Not surprisingly, Executive Presence stems from Personal Effectiveness, a construct related to the individual leader’s knowledge and use of “the self.” Within Personal Effectiveness lie strengths, vision, self values, confidence and emotional intelligence. This is the foundation, the building block, for other forms of effectiveness to be cultivated.
More to come on Leadership Effectiveness and its components. …and see the recent Forbes post on this subject. — 5 Reasons Leaders Become Followers
See also another related article — Between Venus and Mars: 7 Traits of True Leaders
