“There is not a single, more important action for an organization than the tending of its Leadership Bench. The way it sources and selects for it. The way it guides and develops for it. The way it manages and retains for it.”
This is how my friend, colleague, and principal + founder of The Rejuvi Venture, Inc., Regina Hepp, opened one of her posts on LinkedIn about a year ago.
This is a mission-critical notion worth paying attention to as nothing could be further from the truth. Leadership excellence drives excellence in employee experience, which is the forerunner of excellence in one’s customer experience. Finally, there can be no argument that excellence in customer experience drives transformational and sustained growth.
The impact of not paying attention to how we tend to this bench is that 93% of companies today, as reported by McKinsey & Company, are not leveraging the trifecta of creativity + analytics + purpose to power growth. Keep in mind that this is despite spending ~$160 billion annually in the United States and ~$360 billion globally (Source: Training Industry Report).
There are three phrases, “sources and selects,” “guides and develops,” and “manages and retains,” in the opening paragraph that would behoove us to pay heed.
The current state of how we ‘source and select’ leaders for development is not inclusive of all "paid-to-lead leaders.” The exclusion paradigm is primarily because we seat the leadership bench based on hunches and intuition.
In the case of those sitting on the bench, their ‘guidance and development’ is not based on continuous feedback loops that are evidence-based and can deliver prescriptive leadership interventions that can be tied to business outcomes.
If we are not inclusive of who sits on the bench, are not objective in whom we develop, and are inconsistent with how we develop our leaders, then every rock of the boat will feel like we are tipping over. We should also not be surprised when a mere 14% of CEOs say they have the talent they need to execute their business strategies (Source: Global Leadership Forecast.)
It is time to rip up the country club approach to how we construct and tend to the leadership bench.
Time to rip out the “zero-sum” paradigms of the past and replace them with “expanding pie” mindsets.
Time to combine deep leadership development expertise with robust analytics and create a pathway where organizations can tie their leadership development intervention initiatives to top-line and bottom-line business outcomes.
Time for Modern Leadership!
The leadership bench should expand as far as our eyes can see; there is enough leadership to go around, to be honest.
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