Embracing Change Leading the right way by Rachel Autherson If you wish to retain top talent and respond flexibly to change, it is essential to invest in the development of leaders and brand their priorities and activities To succeed, a business generally needs skilled, confident and willing leaders who can respond flexibly to change. Nevertheless, in the battle to improve bottom-line performance, some organisations choose to cut development budgets. In consequence, many fail to nurture the talented and adaptable leaders they need for future success. As organisations strive to maintain long-term business performance, many are beginning to re-evaluate their approach to leadership development. "Companies are beginning to recognise that investing time and money in attracting, retaining and developing leaders is not a discretionary expenditure, but a strategic priority," notes Chris Pierce-Cooke, worldwide managing director of organisational consultancy Right Management Consultants (Right). Years of repeated corporate downsizing have made leadership development a low priority in many organisations, which are experiencing a range of leadership problems as a result. Mr Pierce-Cooke says, "Many leaders are unskilled, unconfident, over-extended and under-informed." Other problems include a lack of experienced leaders in the market, a loss of trust in the credibility of leaders globally and leaders' decreased willingness to reduce their own quality of life in order to meet organisational expectations. Mr Pierce-Cooke: "The key is knowing how to adapt a [leadership] model to meet environmental needs" More fundamentally, mediocre leadership is linked to the attrition of top talent within global organisations, impacting their ability to compete and adapt over the long term. In Right's recent report, "The People Brand Survey", only about half of its 5,400 "high-value employee" respondents agreed that their employers provided effective management, honest and open communication and visionary leadership. Furthermore, 22 percent said they often thought of quitting and 13 percent were actively looking for another position. Defining leadership experience One solution is to focus on an organisation's leadership branding. "To be effective as an employer, you need to define what the employment experience will be and communicate it to the top talent that needs retaining," says Mr Pierce-Cooke. Developing a leadership brand defines the experience that leaders promise their employees. For example, one organisation may choose to prioritise strategic thinking within their leadership brand, while another might focus on people management. Branding allows organisations to attract and retain talented leaders who buy into the same promise - to communicate strategic leadership priorities and guide activities within the organisation that ensure promises to employees are executed. Once branding is established and communicated, the organisation's leaders must live it day-to-day. Right works with a range of methodologies to ensure that executives fit an organisation's chosen leadership brand. For example, if an organisation prioritises risk management as part of its leadership brand, Right might identify those leaders who have yet to develop this capability by observing executives perform job-relevant exercises in a development centre. They might also develop 360-degree performance management systems to track if leaders are applying their skills to day-to-day work. Other tools that help align practice with a brand promise include culture change and compensation programmes. Adapting leadership styles In addition, leadership coaching allows leaders develop a personal success strategy linked to leadership brand priorities. "Coaching is a tool to help leaders quickly identify what they shouldn't be doing and make immediate changes," says Mr Pierce-Cooke. "I know many organisations with very sophisticated leadership models. But the key is knowing how to adapt the model to meet environmental needs and define exactly which characteristics are most important. Traditional leadership development programmes are too rigid and don't work quickly enough." To illustrate the impact of leadership branding, Mr Pierce-Cooke describes a struggling Asian food business's ultimate success story. "A new management team stabilised the company, but they subsequently saw a significant increase in staff turnover." Right found that the organisation's new leaders had adopted a style of "command and control" in order to stabilise the business. However, once stability had been achieved, this style was not acceptable to the staff - they needed more empowerment. Right responded with one-to-one coaching of the executive team, helping them establish a new direction. "The leaders already had excellence in execution, but they needed to take their employees with them through creating vision, motivation and sharing information," he notes. "Success came through something as simple as ensuring employees had a voice." Then and Now Before * Investing time and money in attracting, retaining and developing leaders is viewed as a discretionary expenditure * Unskilled, unconfident, over-extended and under-informed leadership leads to the attrition of top talent * Leadership branding is undefined * Leaders do not have the tools to adapt to environmental changes * Traditional leadership development programmes do not work, due to over-rigidity After * Investing time and money in attracting, retaining and developing leaders is seen as a strategic priority * Promises to top talent about their work experiences are met * The brand is part of the day-to-day activities of the business * Assessment, development and HR processes are aligned with leadership priorities * Leadership development is supported with effective leadership coaching Taken from Career Times 7 November 2003 Your comments are welcome at [email protected]