Linkage Inc's Best Practices in Leadership Development Handbook: Case Studies, Instruments, Training - Hardcover

Linkage Inc.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0470195673 ISBN 13: 9780470195673

Publisher: Pfeiffer, 2009

Synopsis

Leadership development is a planned effort that enhances the learner's capacity to lead people. Building on the success of the first edition, Linkage conducted a study of over 300 top organizations and their needs in organizational change and leadership development that identifies approaches to leadership development that have proven to be successful. The work offers practical "how-to" instructions developing leaders and engaging in leadership development. It provides current in-depth models, assessments, tools, and other instruments that can be used for immediate application within a variety of organizations.

About this title

About the Author

David Giber is a senior vice president at Linkage Inc. and designs leadership programs for organizations world wide.

Samuel M. Lam is the president of Linkage Asia.

Marshall Goldsmith is a prominent coach, speaker, and educator.

Justin Bourke is a program manager at Linkage.

Linkage Inc. is a global organizational development company that specializes in leadership development. We provide clients around the globe with integrated solutions that include strategic consulting services, customized leadership development and training experiences, tailored assessment services, and benchmark research. Linkage's mission is to connect high performing leaders and organizations to the futures they want to create.

From the Back Cover

LINKAGE INC.'S BEST PRACTICES IN LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT HANDBOOK

WHEN THE FIRST EDITION OF LINKAGE INC.'S BEST Practices in Leadership Development Handbook was published in 1999, it immediately became a popular resource for anyone charged with leading or executing leadership development initiatives.

The second edition of the bestselling handbook has been updated to build on the previous edition with a synopsis of the latest changes in the field of leadership development. This includes new benchmark case studies from the world's foremost companies; a wealth of proven guidelines, tools, and models; and a presentation of the latest theories on leadership.

This volume also puts the emphasis on "signature experiences" those initiatives that create a unique and memorable impact on individuals, teams, and eventually the organization. Filled with real-life examples from industry leaders such as Bank of America, Dell, Macy's, and McKesson, these signature experiences show how it is possible to create positive learning and behavioral change in any organization.

The second edition of Linkage Inc.'s Best Practices in Leadership Development Handbook outlines a six-phase approach to leadership development, including new information on vital topics such as:

• Innovations in leadership models
• Product development
• Work team development
• Return-on-investment calculations
• Continuous assessment and evaluation metrics
• Managing knowledge
• Creating an integrated system
• Practical uses of leadership development in a global workforce

With contributions from some of the most important thought leaders in leadership development, this volume offers a resource for designing, delivering, and evaluating successful leadership development programs.

From the Inside Flap

WHEN THE FIRST EDITION OF Linkage Inc.'s Best Practices in Leadership Development Handbook was published in 1999, it immediately became a popular resource for anyone charged with leading or executing leadership development initiatives.

The second edition of the bestselling handbook has been updated to build on the previous edition with a synopsis of the latest changes in the field of leadership development. This includes new benchmark case studies from the world's foremost companies; a wealth of proven guidelines, tools, and models; and a presentation of the latest theories on leadership.

This volume also puts the emphasis on "signature experiences"―those initiatives that create a unique and memorable impact on individuals, teams, and eventually the organization. Filled with real-life examples from industry leaders such as Bank of America, Dell, Macy's, and McKesson, these signature experiences show how it is possible to create positive learning and behavioral change in any organization.

The second edition of Linkage Inc.'s Best Practices in Leadership Development Handbook outlines a six-phase approach to leadership development, including new information on vital topics such as:

• Innovations in leadership models
• Product development
• Work team development
• Return-on-investment calculations
• Continuous assessment and evaluation metrics
• Managing knowledge
• Creating and integrated system
• Practical uses of leadership development in a global workforce

With contributions from some of the most important thought leaders in leadership development, this volume offers a resource for designing, delivering, and evaluating successful leadership development programs.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Linkage Inc's Best Practices in Leadership Development Handbook

John Wiley & Sons

Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-470-19567-3

Chapter One

CONTEXT, CULTURE, AND COMPLEXITIES

Best Practices Versus Best Fit

This chapter outlines the most proven approaches to leadership development and shows how to maximize the use of these approaches by identifying the future needs of the organization and its leaders and leveraging this context to create an overall strategy that is "best-fit," not just "best-practice."

BUSINESS STRATEGY 5 FUTURE LEADERSHIP REQUIREMENT ANALYSIS 6 CURRENT LEADERSHIP CAPABILITY ANALYSIS 9 LEADER SELECTION AND RETENTION TOOLS AND PROCESSES 10 LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT TOOLS AND PROCESSES 12 PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT TOOLS AND PROCESSES 14 CONCLUSION 15 ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTOR 20

When it comes to developing the leaders within an organization, the stakes are high, and the potential payoff is enormous. This chapter focuses on the creation of a systemic approach to leadership development that is aligned with an organization's strategy, culture, and the critical initiatives required for future competitiveness.

An effective leadership development system is crucial to the long-term success of any organization. It can build sustainable competitive advantage for organizations that take the time and make the effort to design and implement the system.

Since developing leaders takes years, the leadership development system needs to be built around the future leadership needs of the organization and appropriately adjusted to reflect changes in strategy. At the macrolevel, a systemic approach to leadership development is based on four strategic questions:

1. What capabilities will our leaders need to have in three to five years?

2. What capabilities do our leaders currently have? What gaps do we need to fill between our current capabilities and those required in the future?

3. What do we need to do to develop our leaders?

4. How do the components and processes of our overall human resource (HR) system need to be aligned with our leadership development system for maximum return on investment?

Based on these questions, those who are designing a leadership development system need to:

1. Identify future leadership requirements

2. Assess current leadership capabilities to identify the gaps

3. Build and reconfigure the tools, activities, and processes of leadership development, talent management, and performance and succession management in order to develop the necessary leadership capability for the future

Figure 1.1 illustrates the step-by-step process for designing leadership development as well as the key HR processes that need to be aligned with the leadership development system.

Business Strategy

The design of a best practice leadership development system must begin with an assembly of the "right people" who are critical stakeholders in the overall architecture of the system. In best practice organizations, this "leadership development council" is typically made up of key members of the executive team, business unit and functional staff leaders, members of the board of directors, and in some instances key customer or supplier representatives. By involving these key stakeholders from the beginning, these organizations face fewer difficulties with issues of "buy-in" and senior leader support that can plague organizations. In addition, involvement at this level leads to much easier adoption of another leadership development best practice: leaders teaching leaders.

The first job of the leadership development council is to conduct a thorough review (if it already exists) or lead the construction (if it does not exist) of the organization's future strategy. Although this chapter does not go into the details of creating a well-crafted strategy, the leadership development council should address the following questions in analyzing the organization's future "business strategy":

What is the organization's most desirable future state? (vision)

Why does the organization exist? (mission)

What will the organization do better than any other organization in the world? (strategy)

How will the organization achieve its strategy? (business and operating plans)

What future expectations exist among key stakeholders? (goals)

What common factors guide all employees of the organization as they execute their work? (values)

Once there is clarity and agreement among the key stakeholders with respect to these questions, the leadership development council is ready to proceed to the next step in the process.

Future Leadership Requirement Analysis

The future leadership requirement analysis determines the critical capabilities required of leaders to deliver on the organization's future strategy. Once these leadership capabilities are identified, they serve as the foundation for the relevant HR processes that must be aligned with the leadership development tools and processes in order to deliver the leaders required to execute future strategy. Only if the analysis of the future leadership requirements is accurate will the rest of the leadership development system be built effectively and contribute to the future success of the organization.

The involvement of the leadership development council is critical in the future leadership requirement analysis. Research has shown that topperforming organizations are 35 to 50 percent more likely to have CEO and board-level involvement than average-performing companies.

The work of conducting the future leadership requirement analysis can be summarized in three steps:

Step 1: Identify organizational opportunities and challenges based on a thorough review of the future strategy.

Step 2: Identify the future outputs that leaders will need to produce in order to capitalize on the opportunities and overcome the challenges.

Step 3: Identify the future leadership competencies and capabilities required to produce these outputs at the highest quality levels.

In today's best practice organizations, the identification of critical leadership outputs and competencies is always oriented toward future business strategy rather than backward to the outputs and competencies that distinguished superior leaders in the past.

Depending on the amount of time and resources, both personnel and financial, that the organization can allocate to the identification of the outputs and competencies, there will be a continuum of options to choose from. On the relatively inexpensive end of the continuum, you can facilitate a deductive process using a card deck or generic output dictionary to efficiently and effectively identify the core outputs the leaders will need to produce to execute the business strategy. On the other end of the continuum, you can assemble a team of industrial/organizational psychologists or other skilled professionals to use a combination of interviews, observation, surveys, external benchmarking, and other data-gathering tools to produce the required outputs. There are numerous examples of best practice organizations that have used the full continuum of options to generate the list of their leader's future outputs.

The same continuum of options is available to build the leadership competency model. Again, we have identified best practice organizations that achieved their success using any of the various approaches. Nevertheless, all had a leadership competency model as the foundation of their leadership development system. If you choose to develop a leadership model internally, we recommend using an experienced and effective facilitator, members of the leadership development council, and a competency dictionary or card deck (which represents a number of common competencies) as a starting point. The process typically unfolds as follows:

Step 1: Based on the previous identification of the leader's future outputs, whittle the complete card deck or competency list (through a card sorting process) down to the core seven to ten competencies that the team concludes are the most critical in enabling leaders to deliver these outputs.

Step 2: Define the organization-specific knowledge, skills, and behaviors associated with each competency. This step ensures that the accompanying competency definitions and descriptors accurately capture how a superior performer exhibits that competency in the organization.

Step 3: Create a rating scale for each competency that distinguishes the various proficiency levels in which the competency is observed. The key in this step is to develop clear, specific, reliable, and one-dimensional behavior anchors to describe each point on the rating scale.

Step 4: Create a matrix worksheet. List the outputs (one output per row) in the far-left column and the competencies (one competency per column) across the top.

Step 5: Starting with the first competency, discuss with the team how critical this competency is to producing each of the outputs. Rate its criticality on a scale of 1 to 5, with (1 = unnecessary and 5 = critical). Repeat this process for each of the competencies identified.

Step 6: When the matrix is completed, each column should contain at least one 5, and each row should contain at least one 5. (If not, review the selected outputs or competencies and reconsider those choices.)

Step 7: Once you are confident that you have identified the competencies that are most critical to delivering the superior quality outputs required to execute the future business strategy, the final step is to graphically depict the competencies in a model that will be shared throughout the organization.

The future business strategy has been clarified and the corresponding leadership outputs and competencies that are required to successfully execute that strategy have now been identified. Next is conducting an accurate assessment of the organization's current leadership capabilities.

Current Leadership Capability Analysis

The current leadership capability analysis evaluates the capabilities of the organization's leaders against the identified future leadership requirements. The resulting assessment is used to identify the strengths and development opportunities that exist between the current leadership capabilities and those required in the future.

Typically organizations tend to focus their leadership assessment work at the level of individual leaders. They do this by designing or purchasing assessment tools that in the best practice organizations tie directly to the leadership competency model. Among the many individual leadership capability assessments are these:

Multirater leadership assessments or 360-degree feedback assessments

Personality, style, and motive assessments

Specialized inventories (e.g., decision-making assessments, IQ/EQ tests, potential derailers)

Assessment center data

Internal observations and interviews with peers, managers, subordinates, customers, and relevant others

Past performance reviews and appraisals

Although individual leadership competency assessments are an important component of the current leadership capability analysis, they should not be the only focus. A systemic approach to leadership development requires an analysis of leadership capability and performance from both an individual and an organizational perspective.

Best practice organizations use a variety of tools to analyze current organizational performance to inform their assessment of current leadership capability-for example:

Culture assessments

Employee satisfaction surveys

Customer surveys

Employee turnover and exit interview analysis

Financial analysis of actual performance versus goals

Aggregate utilization rates of development opportunities

Impact analysis of developmental experiences versus results

A thorough and objective analysis of current leadership capability allows the leadership development council not only to identify the critical gaps that need to be closed through a well-integrated leadership development system, but also to highlight the shortfalls, if any, that the previous developmental experiences have produced in terms of improved results. The best practice organizations are constantly monitoring the return on investment of their leadership development tools and processes and the results that leaders produce. In addition, they work extremely hard to ensure that the other critical HR processes are aligned so that they are successful in accomplishing their overall objective of increasing the quantity and quality of existing and future leaders.

Leader Selection and Retention Tools and Processes

In order to efficiently and effectively develop the quantity and quality of the organization's leadership cadre, best practice organizations ensure that their leader selection and retention tools and processes are fully aligned with their leadership development, performance, and succession management tools and processes.

The first step in this phase of the design is to identify which leadership competencies are easier and more cost effective to hire than to develop. Practitioners with experience in this domain recognize that although it is debatable as to whether certain competencies are innate and therefore cannot be developed, few (if any) would debate that those same competencies are acquired fastest and cheapest by hiring leaders who are already highly proficient. As a colleague once said, "You might be able to train a turkey to climb a tree, but why not just hire a squirrel?"

Although the distinctions made in the first step are important, the next step is to ensure that all key stakeholders in the hiring process are aware of the newly created or revised leadership competency model. This also implies that there must be a coordinated approach to support all stakeholders involved in the assessment of leader candidates against that competency model. To save time and money, we recommend using the same tools and processes that were developed or tailored in the assessment of the current leadership capability to inform leader selection decisions.

In addition to the organization's own work on leader selection, the quantity and quality of the leadership bench are determined by the number of great leaders the organization already has. Through our research at Linkage, we have found that the best practice organizations maximize their retention of great leaders by focusing on six satisfiers:

1. Work, role, and objectives. Do the job functions, outputs, and responsibilities fit my needs and expectations?

2. Salary and benefits. Does the remuneration match my needs and expectations-and what the marketplace will pay?

3. Career development. Does the level of learning and growth meet my needs and expectations?

4. Team. Do I fit with and relate to the team and my manager?

5. Culture. Do the values, operating principles, and beliefs of the organization fit mine?

6. Work/life balance. Does the job permit me to strike an acceptable balance between work and personal life?

Finally, the leader selection and retention tools and processes provide the organization with the ability to predict leadership turnover percentages and to set an ideal mix of internally developed and externally acquired leadership talent in accordance with the future leadership requirement analysis. When properly aligned, the leader selection retention tools and processes will enable the organization to:

Recruit and select on the basis of the critical leadership capabilities.

Balance short-term and long-term recruiting. Strategic recruiting and hiring are needed to build capacity for future.

Identify targets for internal promotion and external recruitment for all levels of management.

Identify those with high potential on the basis of evidence that they possess the critical leadership capabilities.

Predict leadership turnover percentages for all levels.

Ensure that leaders who are hired have the tools and knowledge to become effective and successful as quickly as possible.

In parallel with the work to align and implement leader selection and retention tools and processes that are tied to business strategy, future leadership requirements, and current leadership capability, best practice organizations are working on aligning and implementing their leadership development tools and processes.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Linkage Inc's Best Practices in Leadership Development Handbook Copyright © 2008 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Edition details

• Publisher: Pfeiffer
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0470195673
• ISBN 13: 9780470195673
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 480
• Editor: Giber David, Lam Samuel M., Goldsmith Marshall, Bourke Justin