I had earlier written about leadership development and its significance. Don't ask "why its important" rather focus on "how to develop?". Identification becomes a critical aspect of the development life cycle. Every organization has a finite number of resources and therefore it becomes critical that leadership, innovation, learning, employee engagement is broadbased and permeates through the entire fabric. Another key reason for identifying a leadership talent pool is to ensure that there is continuity and momentum towards achieving the mission. So what does an organization need to do to identify the next gen leaders?
There are three key stages in the leadership life cycle as shown. In this blog, we will focus on the identification phase which lays the foundation for the rest of them. What are the attributes that you need to consider for recognizing people who can be the future leaders? Is it just behavioral, or is it performance oriented or is it based on potential? A lot of thought and consideration needs to go into selecting the right kind of next gen leaders
Let's now get through some of the essential steps in this process :-
1.Bring together a core team : The core team would be responsible for the entire process of identification, enabling and nurturing the leadership pool. Be sure that you select the right kind of people who truly believe in developing leaders for your department/organization.
2.Be clear on the "why" and "what" : You need to be absolutely certain as to why are you identifying this group and what are they expected to do. Outline the objectives and guidelines upfront, and ensure that this is communicated. Avoid confusion !!!
3.Define the attributes : Write down the leadership characteristics that you want this team to exhibit. Start with the traits, then the competencies and situations where you think that the leader might make a difference
4.Pre-selection process : Start with identifying the target group, while keeping in mind the objectives. Once you have decided on the target group, lay out the evaluation criteria. This is going to be used by the panelists for deciding on the candidates. It is advisable to have atleast one round of face to face discussion. Speak to the leadership team to pick the jury.
5.Selection : Once the target group, send out a communication outlining the objectives, and the entire process. Be sure to share the dates and relevant information for people to respond. Its very critical that all stakeholders are tuned to the entire process.
6.Post Selection : Communicate to all those who showed interest on the completion of selection process. Meet the team, set the expectations and ensure that you provide enough impetus for them to get started.
While it's a topic by itself, enabling nurturing these leaders is a critical activity in their development. This does need a lot of care and attention. The leadership development framework must contain ways and means to measure the impact of this group.
There is a common misconception that leadership development is necessary for enterprises or big firms. A project, account, unit or department, a region or for that matter any group that is being united by a dimension needs leadership development. Ofcourse, the scale and complexity will differ but the advantage would be how each one can leverage and build on. So for example, if a department decides to launch this, it must consider piggybacking on the mechanisms/avenues that are available at an organizational level for development.
Here are a few guiding principles that can be looked at while establishing the selection criteria :-
•Transparency : Communicate to everyone about the process
•Forward looking : This is about the future and hence the criteria has to be telescopic
•Stringent : Make people realize that this is a grill and not for the short termers
•Uniformity : No entitlements even if you are a leader by virtue of your current role
For all those of you who are wondering - what are the characteristics that I need to look for while picking out the potential candidates, therein lies the enigma. Here are a few of them to get you started but remember that this is a never ending list - visionary and aspirational, inspirational, honesty, integrity, managing conflict, bringing out the best in people, working with diverse people and opinions, managing stakeholders, empathy, risk taking and many more. Identify the traits that align with your objectives and design the evaluation around them. Having said this, I would like to solicit feedback from my readers on what they think are the traits that you need to look for in Leaders of Tomorrow. Good luck and god bless !!!
Source : email from my friend