Leadership Development and Your Most Valuable Asset

So just how is leadership development going in your organization these days?

It's a struggle, right?

If being a leader were easy, everybody would be one. I'm exaggerating a bit, but that's small consolation when the future of your organization depends on cultivating leadership skills at all levels. Is it really that hard to find people in your company who possess the personal attributes desired in a leader?

We both know that a good leader possesses strong character, integrity, excellent communication skills, the ability to build trust, passion, and a spirit of continuous learning. That's quite a combination of traits and skills. We also know that leadership is hard and can often be a lonely, thankless job. Leaders have many irons in the fire, often have to make unpopular decisions, and are expected to perform flawlessly in the face of a crisis. By now, it should be plain to see that not just anyone can be a leader.

In my travels, I've met people who were ideally suited to be leaders and I took some time to learn as much as I could from them. I've also met plenty of people who were in leadership positions for all the wrong reasons. These are folks who are putting your company at great risk right now and your best bet for creating a leadership development program that really works is to identify them and guide them towards the career that is the best fit with who they really are.

So how do people find themselves in leadership roles that they don't truly desire, or have the ability to succeed at? If you've ever heard of the "Peter Principle", then you know part of the reason already. This principle states that people are promoted to their level of incompetence, but that's a bit of an oversimplification. It's not necessarily that the employee is now incompetent, but perhaps the leadership role just isn't a good fit for their skills and it may even be something they're not passionate about.

Because it's common to consider high performing individual contributors for leadership roles, many find themselves thrust into these roles at the encouragement of their managers. The promise of a raise, additional responsibilities, and a higher status within the company are all very attractive to the average employee. Once some of these young leaders start struggling, they seek out leadership development programs to help fill in those skill gaps that they perceive are the reasons for their lack of success.

Leadership development training helps for a while, but many of these young leaders don't show any sustained improvement in their performance. Many of them continue to struggle, or just hang on for dear life, while constantly dealing with stress and diminishing job satisfaction. The money, the status, and the inability to deal with failure keep them stuck in a job they now hate. This is why a successful leadership development program must begin with a clear process for identifying candidates with leadership potential.

There are some important questions to ask anyone before placing them into a leadership development program. These questions relate heavily to self-image and values. Someone who determines their self-worth based on their ability to earn a living, or on their ability to produce results perhaps doesn't understand what it really means to be a leader. Will a person who bases their self-image on the approval of others be able to make tough, and often unpopular, personnel decisions?

Those with leadership potential often have a self-image that is closely aligned with their core character. They live by natural, unchanging principles that serve as a rock at the center of their being. External factors simply don't sway them. These types of people make leaders who build trust easily, can form a clear vision of success, and allow their employees to risk and grow on a daily basis.

Aren't these the kind of folks who've always envisioned as the future of your organization?

What separates leaders from followers? Download your free e-book, "The Human Condition" and begin to explore why some develop a leader's passion and some don't. Begin to learn what goes on in our minds and, more importantly, how we can start gaining more control over it.