The idea that there is a key requirement for ‘better leadership’ as the ‘answer’ to most, if not all, business and organisational problems remains prevalent.
Numerous surveys by management consultancies reinforce the notion that there is a leadership talent ‘gap’ and, by extension, a need for more and better leadership development activity.
This idea is so frequently stated that it is broadly accepted as a given truth. As the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development’s 2012 survey on Learning and Talent Development revealed, the main point of concern simply becomes which mode of training to deploy.
Coaching and in-house development programmes remain the most popular approaches, however – as they have done for many years.
But a general belief persists that there is a deficit in terms of leadership and management skills – according to the CIPD, nearly three quarters of organisations in England perceive that such a deficit exists despite all of their developmental investment and efforts.
But if there is a (simplistic) belief that ‘leadership’ is the answer to virtually all business and organisational problems, then is it not the case that a perceived ‘leadership skills deficit’ is always likely to exist by virtue of the fact that such business and organisational problems have not been tackled?
Major reports from public authorities including health, policing, local and central government reiterate a very similar theme in the analyses of the problems that they face.
Fit-for-purpose
They tend to propound the argument that organisations of all kinds are forced to respond to increasing uncertainty, resource constraints, instability, rising and changing demand, deregulation and competitiveness in the marketplace.
In consequence, the argument continues, there is a perceived need to change organisational shape, size, scope and methods of operation. Resources are tight, organisational structures must become flatter, which, in turn, makes power more distributed and devolved, and staff must be motivated, reassured and given direction.
The case ‘for leadership’ is thus seemingly made easily and, once again, the agenda quickly turns to how best to meet the need using a variety of leadership development approaches. This situation may even create a market for novelty in such approaches.
But, if business challenges are reframed, other approaches, which are less dependent on the notion of individual leaders with a skills deficit, are opened up for consideration.
We have often found that corporate enquiries as to what leadership development packages are available mask deeper and wider organisational problems such as antiquated systems, ill-fitting structures and lack of clarity with regard to goals.
Of course, there are occasions where a relatively standard leadership or management development programme is a wise investment. But, in other instances, it is important for organisations to widen the scope of their analysis.
This entails evaluating additional organisational and business issues and the kind of contribution that a leadership development programme could make if it were designed to fit their purpose.
Wider perspective
Without such a wider perspective, isolated investments in leadership development may be wasteful and misguided. Let’s take an example. Our recent research within the National Health Service revealed that, despite the intensity of rhetoric around the crucial need for ‘clinical leadership’, there was, and is, an underlying challenge.
The challenge lies in the fact that the structures, culture and executive-level behaviour and expectations prevalent in much of the NHS often actively discourage any attempts to exercise such bottom-up leadership by clinicians.
The implication of this important finding is that, if investment is not to be wasted, conventional leadership development methods must be supplemented in order to enable the development of additional skills of a rather less conventional kind.
The aim here is to allow would-be clinical leaders a fighting chance of making a difference.
To stay with this example a moment longer, the wider perspective advocated comprises two aspects. The first involves supplementing conventional leadership development curricula with an additional set of insights and skills in order to enable participants to operate within their given contexts with political acuity.
The second aspect is more ambitious still. It posits that, in order to gain full value from a leadership development investment, a set of organisational development interventions are required within that context itself.
This means taking a wider systems approach when making an intervention in order to give the leader concerned experience of handling strategic issues that are relevant to their sphere of operation.
Leadership development plus
The idea is that leadership development works best when tied to business needs. We have found that such training is most effective when it is part of a wider effort to harness the latent leadership capabilities of personnel across a given business unit.
When live organisational problems are worked on and attempts made to remove or reduce any blocks that prevent individuals acting as true leaders, we find that people are far less likely to report a ‘leadership gap’ as being their main organisational problem.
Instead there tends to be a noticeable shift towards them identifying operational, structural, cultural and behavioural barriers and proffering ideas and suggestions that could help tackle them.
As a result of such findings, the wider agenda that we advocate involves:
- Moving beyond the notion that drip-feeding leadership development activity to selected individuals will be enough
- Introducing an approach that enables leaders to engage with important practical and strategic challenges facing the business
- Searching actively for ‘connectors’ to a wider constituency of leaders distributed throughout the organisation
- Encouraging developing leaders to challenge conventional thinking and behaviour within their organisation and offer alternative solutions
But we also suggest that, in the above analysis, there is a distinction to be made between leadership and management – even though such terms are often – and sometimes legitimately – used interchangeably.
In this instance the distinction matters, however. Conventional management development techniques are likely to be more appropriate where there is a need is for performance management, employee engagement and the systematic application of proven operational procedures.
Where the challenge is to try and tackle the kind of deep-seated business problems referred to at the start of this article, however, leadership development plus is definitely the way to go.
John Storey is professor of HR management at The Open University Business School.
2 Responses
Balance is Key for Leadership
There is no doubt that it is about getting the balance right. I absolutely agree that the systems/structures/processes need to be in place (and no doubt improved in many organisations) to ensure consistency of delivery to clients and adherence to legal, ethical and moral guidelines. However, outstanding performance relies not only on following processes, but in being motivated to find innovative ways to achieve our best possible results, whilst working within these systems. Developing personal leadership at all levels in an organisation is the difference between individuals ‘doing their job’ and being motivated to want to make a real, positive difference to their colleagues, their company and it’s success and their community.
Penny Ferguson, Managing Partner at The Living Leader
better leadership
The notion of ‘better leadership’ as the answer to your problems is a highly topical subject which I have to agree with! Looking at the research presented I can definitely see that there is a talent ‘gap’ which is only extending over time. In my experience I have seen those who have been constrained by the training available to them which has prevented their accession through the ranks, but by careful choices of training implementation it is easy to see how this could have been avoided.
Dave Evans Commercial Director at accessplanit Specialist in Course Registration Software and training administration systems.