Try this experiment: Ask people at any level in an organization what they look for in a great boss. Leadership consultants know that many will tell you they look for someone from whom they can learn and grow. But if you ask those same people whether bosses throughout their careers have been good at helping them develop, most confirm that few of their bosses did a good job at this critical task.
Many of us have worked for smart, accomplished and successful people. But few of those executives have been good at teaching us the things we needed to learn to become great leaders.
In more than 20,000 hours of “high-gain conversations”[1] with hundreds of CEOs, senior executives and leaders, the consultants at McArdle Ramerman Inc. have grown aware of a great irony: Though strategic results are indisputably achieved through well-trained and accomplished leaders, many senior people have little idea about how to develop those leaders.
Learned Skill
Developing people is a learned skill that executives can build over time with commitment and practice.
Factors that affect executives’ ability to develop people include the fact that many successful executives made their own lonely way up the corporate ladder. They worked hard, delivered results and got noticed. A fortunate few had an advocate or a mentor who believed in them. While many executives have had advanced education, many have not been formally coached or developed in their leadership skills to the extent they would have liked.
Most important, many senior executives say they just don’t know how to develop people. Often, they claim limited time or patience in this area. When their direct reports’ past experience proves enough to meet current demands, development gets pushed further down the organizational to-do list.
Strategic Priority
Visionary executives recognize their success and sustainability depends on having the right strategy, putting long-term succession plans in place and creating a leadership pipeline.[2] As always, leaders need to go first. Organization-wide leadership development needs to become a strategic priority that executives don’t just talk about doing for others, but that they engage in for themselves.
Top Eight Tips
Executives develop people best and give them a reason to stay with their organizations when they establish a developmental mindset and through clear steps. Here are eight tips for how to develop people effectively.
1.Start at recruitment: Identify the potential of the individual and his/her development needs.
2.Structure well-defined roles, responsibilities and accountabilities.
3.Identify and give visibility to high performers and high professionals.
4.Ensure well-paced job rotation and advancement. This is especially critical for high potentials that love the next challenge and will leave if they don’t get it.
5.Make sure people are in jobs that play 80-85% of the time to their most natural talents.
6.Learn how to be skilled formal and informal coaches.
7.Provide honest, direct and consistent performance feedback.
8.Set aside 10-20% of your time for developmental activities and conversations.
Personal Reward
In addition to making good business sense, developing leaders also has its personal rewards. Although it’s not a natural talent for all executives, it’s a skill that can and must be learned, if we want to retain great talent and to create great organizations.
Developing people can be a calling, as it was for Dr. Cornelius B. Murphy Jr., president of the State University College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse, N.Y. As the former CEO and chairman of O’Brien & Gere Companies, Ltd., an engineering company also located in Syracuse, Murphy said he always thought of himself as a “latent educator” in his leadership roles.
Murphy never thought of himself as a mentor, yet mentoring behavior was part of his leadership style over more than 30 years. He said that he believes that when you leave your work behind, “you’ll never remember how much you made, how much the company made and the amount of chargeable time. All you’ll remember are the people you have touched and those people who have touched you.”
Sherri McArdle and Jim Ramerman are co-CEOs of McArdle Ramerman Inc., an executive and leadership development firm in upstate New York. They offer a year-long course for executives who want to sharpen their development skills. They are also co-authors of a new book, Why Dogs Wag Their Tails: Lessons Leaders Can Learn About Work, Joy and Life, available at retailers nationwide. For more information, go to www.leadeshiprising.com or call (585) 325-1210.
[1]High-GainSM conversations: Fostered by High-Gain questions, High-Gain conversations are open and courageous discussions conducted in a spirit of disclosure. They are driven by a mutual desire to learn and to generate clarity in an atmosphere of trust and suspended judgments.
