Leadership Development
Becoming a leader is a development process - for you as an individual, for your team and for the organisation which wants you to incorporate certain values and guarantee outcomes.
Within the last 30 years I witnessed diverse approaches to leadership development - searching and assessing candidates, training and supporting them on- and off-site as well as defining competency profiles and career paths. The effectiveness of all such initiatives and programs is very much relying on the perceived company culture and trustworthiness of both, Senior Management and HR.
The more these elements align with the purpose and vision of the company, the more the training part allows a coherent and sensemaking development of the people who lead, hence increase the effectiveness in business.
Mastering the triangle of leading yourself, others and developing the organisation. Globally and locally, as a line manager or expert, in projects, x-functional or agile teams.
You (need to) decide what kind of leadership you want.
Strategic alignment Purpose driven
Make sure you align content, time and the specific social set up of your leadership development initiative to your company's purpose and vision.
Guiding questions:
What do you want your leaders to become?
How do you define their role - in functions, projects, regions and within your hierarchy?
What is the set of values you want them to incorporate?
Effective leadership development focuses on roles and responsibilites and goes hand in hand with the development of the organisation.
Board Assignment Role modelling
Leadership is infectious - you get what leaders see and experience.
Guiding questions:
How do you operate and lead yourself as a board member, entrepreneur?
What are the challenges leaders need to face in their various roles?
How do you support and grow leaders outside a training experience?
You cannot expect leaders to behave differently from what you role model as Board - as individuals and as a team. You set the tone including your trust in the people you chose and support to lead.
You cannot delegate leadership development.
Peer Group Building bridges
The power of cross-functional cooperation is key to an agile organisation. Again leaders make the weather.
Guiding questions:
How can a leadership development program encourage and normalize the interaction across functions?
What else do you create for leaders to connect naturally with their relevant peers?
How broad is your understanding of leadership?
x-collaboration amongst leaders is crucial for their teams - either to follow them or to respect them for building relevant bridges.
Dialogues Shared understanding
No internal or external professional can substitute the direct communication amongst leaders across hierarchies and functions.
Guiding questions:
How fluid is the communication across the hierarchy in your organisation?
Do you support (un) conscious silo thinking?
Is your understanding of communication reduced to information?
x-Dialogues enable a shared understanding of business, strategy, organisation and practical leadership - thus effective cooperation.
Some of my experiences
Initial experience in each field of business and live creates impact on the sense of quality, effectiveness and how you felt in your specific role, also as a leader. Therefore I want to share my first endeavors in supporting leaders in their development.
I started co-creating and leading leadership development programs as an internal Consultant at Daimler - training new international Junior Leaders within 3 modules over a period of one year, in an open set up, very much group dynamic oriented and focused on self-organisation and the reflection of action. No scheduled teaching and quite similar to my own training as an international Junior Leader at Mercedes-Benz.
Followed by a first leadership development program as an independant consultant at Bombardier (Building effectiveness) - supporting international Senior Executives over four, then two modules including site visits and top management dialogues across Europe - in tandem mode with a British colleague and facing cultural diversity of sometimes more than 10 nationalities, representing various businesses, functions and regions.
What I learned across all further programs e.g. at EON (International Junior Management program), Wolford (a Culture development combined approach, starting with the board), AXA Investment (Leadership 2012, built on strategic skills co-created by tma, Transnational Management Associates) or Daimler (Global Leadership) is the set of ingredients which contribute to sustainable success.
Strategic Alignment. Board Assignment. Cross-hierachical Dialogues. Cross-functional Peers.