One in three HR professionals can’t be wrong; they believe that leadership development in UK plc is ineffective so what are the qualities that make a good leader great and what can HR do to help senior executives get there?
Leadership is a crucial issue for organisations in any industry. According to the Training and Development Survey (2005) from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), 65% of respondents believe there is a shortage of effective leaders in UK industry and over a third of respondents believe their leadership development activities are ineffective.
But what are the qualities that make a leader successful and how can HR amend their development programme to address these crucial factors?
If as many as one in three HR professionals believe that leadership development is ineffective, then there must be something not quite right somewhere along the line. Perhaps the problem is that traditional development activities are missing an essential element in the skill set they focus on.
What do leadership development programmes achieve today? They give delegates some level of insight into their own preferred form of leadership – often categorised as a “style type”. They learn in what sort of situations their style type will work best and where it is less appropriate.
They may learn about the key types of leadership style – for example; the directive style where the boss makes the decisions without consulting anyone else for their ideas; or the consensual style where decisions are made as a team and everyone inputs their ideas into the process.
Delegates on leadership courses develop an awareness of the importance of varying their style according to the demands of a particular situation. It is a valuable insight – but one that is unlikely to translate into improved performance because it fails to address the issue of leadership judgement; the wisdom to judge when to adopt which style of leadership. Individuals come away without being equipped either to gauge the accuracy of their leadership judgement or to improve it.
Leadership judgement represents the ability to choose the best way to deal with a situation – even if that way isn’t the style type that would come naturally. It comes down to judging how much to involve the team in generating information on which to base the decision and who should make the final decision.
The core leadership styles:
- The directive style: boss makes the decision based on their ideas
- The consultative style: boss makes the decision based on consulting the team for ideas
- The delegative style: team make the decision based on their ideas
- The consensual style: boss and team make the decision based on everyone’s ideas
Each style is right some of the time, but no style is right all of the time. For example, the delegative style can increase motivation and morale if used in situations where the team is competent and will be empowered by more authority. If under-used it can result in too little sharing of responsibility, leading to stress and overload for the leader and low self-confidence within the team.
Equally, if it is used too much it can cause lack of control, loss of authority and lowered respect for the leader. Equally it can lead to stress for the team if they don’t feel equipped for the responsibility and can be damaging for the credibility of both the leader and the team.
The wisdom to know when to use each style can be learned, but it is important also that an individual is aware of the degree to which preference for one particular leadership style can impact on their ability to deal with a situation in an appropriate manner.
Take Jim for example. He is a supply chain director in the manufacturing industry with a reputation for being tough and uncompromising in his leadership style. Jim has a preference for the delegative approach to leadership; given the choice, he will tell others to go and sort things out and not to return until they’ve completed the task.
Jim delegates when he should be making other choices and places too much emphasis on others ‘coming up with the goods’ without offering support or supervision. When they do fail to deliver, he quickly switches to directive mode and makes a decision as to what should be done without consulting his team.
Jim’s preference for the delegative and directive leadership styles arises from a preference for keeping a distance from his colleagues. Either he makes the decision himself based on his ideas, or he tells the team to go away and make the decision themselves with no input from him.
With coaching it emerged that Jim is actually a rather introverted person who experiences a lot of social anxiety, although this wasn’t apparent to his colleagues.
He lacks insight into how to be either consensual or consultative and is now working with his coach on this aspect of his leadership ability.
Leadership development courses, if they are to be effective, must take on board these principles so that they include not only an understanding of how different leadership styles impact in different situations, but also an active focus on developing leadership judgement and follow up to identify blocks to implementing the style that good judgement suggests is the right approach to any one particular decision.
Wendy Lord is Chief Psychologist at Hogrefe The Test Agency
Related items
2 Responses
Leadership Development
I share Steve’s concerns about the meaning and relevance of the stats quoted – for example, how was ‘leadership’ defined in the survey and how might respondents have measured the effectiveness of either the training or the leadership they have esperienced, other than perhaps by ‘gut feel’?
However, I am quite happy to accept Wendy’s general thesis that we could all do much better as leaders, and that just one leadership style does not and cannot suit all. More, I would not only suggest that any appropriate leadership style is context-specific, but also (self-evidently?) cultural- and organisation-specific.
So for this reason, I wouldn’t blame the Training Dept for any failures here (as Steve with tongue-in-cheek might hint), but the organisation’s leaders themselves in two special regards. a) Their ability to be great, appropriate role models for their colleagues; and b) their own coaching skills, or their development of others who might offer such 1:1 sensitive support.
There may also be corporate failures of judgment in identifying, selecting and growing future leaders in the first place – but another issue?
Best wishes
Jeremy
Poor leadership development – HR’s responsibility?
In reading this story, what comes across is:
a) at least a third of HR people suggest that leadership development is ineffective. (I remain to be convinced about the word professionals in this specific context)
b) If two thirds think there is a shortage of effective leaders – what does that say about the much used “talent management” term currently used by HR. If talent was being properly managed then such a shortage would surely be addressed.
c) Who is responsible for people development – I recollect somewhere that HR people suggest they might be?
d) Is there a connection here in that HR people are getting it wrong with their programmes – either the design of them or addressing delegates expectations. Let’s remember that over 80% of any training is lost extremely quickly – and there is also the organisational context to be taken into account. Does it allow people to put ideas into practice in the workplace?
e) Thus it could be that a number of HR people are ineffective – and thus not worthy of the word professional?
A partially tongue in cheek response
Steve