We rely on our leaders for almost everything: to hire the best staff; to manage day-to-day operations; to build and protect culture; to achieve results; to manage and mitigate risk; to grow and ensure profitability; and to implement strategy. And yet, a surprisingly large number of companies don’t adequately invest in this most important resource.
Sure, staff go to leadership conferences, or attend a variety of external leadership courses, or even read countless leadership books and articles. Without doubt, there is information to be gained by these mechanisms that leaders can bring back to their respective teams or divisions.
But how strategic is this approach? With individual leaders heading off in their own directions based on personal interest, how will you ensure that your collective leadership team is moving in the same relative direction, and one that will benefit your organization?
How are you creating a leadership culture that aligns with and supports your organizational culture if much of your leadership development is externally offered at the discretion of individual leaders? And how do you evaluate a leadership team when a common understanding of these skills and abilities is absent?
This is not about creating ‘cookie-cutter’ leadership. Quite the opposite. It’s about viewing leadership strategically, and applying that same strategic lens to the hiring and development of your leadership teams. It’s about conscious and intentional leadership practices based on the needs of your organization at certain points in time.
Leadership is the critical element that sits between determining strategy, goals and desired results and actually achieving them. It is quite possibly your greatest competitive advantage.
From building the capacity of your existing leaders, to formalizing a pipeline for developing your future leaders, to the identification of your high potential staff and leadership succession planning at all levels throughout your organization, we can help.