12 minute read
Leadership Development
and out of the classroom. Leadership also includes looking for leadership talent and potential in others. Leadership capability should be built incrementally at different stages of employee life cycle. By developing leadership skills within your team, you create an environment where you can create continued succession in the long term. Building talent and potential pipeline is a true measure of great leadership.
Leadership traits are different from skills. They are essentially behaviors or characteristics that an individual inherently possesses. It is believed that one may develop these traits without realizing that they are being developed. These can be developed over time through mentorship, accompanying, observation, coaching and support. Proper exposure to a deliberate program my accelerate their development. Such traits include:
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• Motivation, • Energy, • Perseverance, • Emotional Intelligence, • Self-confidence, and many more
Success with leadership traits is manifested by one’s ability to communicate well both orally and in writing. This includes one’s ability to consolidate one’s ideas, formulate a vision and articulate such a view to others. Clarity of thought and unhindered listening could be seen as the critical component of leadership traits. A number of institution attempt to teach these traits through practical offsite sessions and masterclasses. However, most people believe that such traits are more likely to manifest independent of any formal or informal leadership training.
The people who are described as “born leaders” tend to be those that “manifest” with advanced leadership traits. Such manifestation tends to start at a young age. Recognition and praise at a young age tend to encourage the practice of leadership traits in young people. Recognition in a work place will develop these capabilities.
In today’s ever changing world globalization and technology freedom have transformed leadership practices. These changes have thrust the leadership capability to the core of business success or business failure. In this environment leadership capability is expected to develop at a faster pace in line with the higher appetite to succeed. In order to ensure success most businesses are making use of pre recruitment measurement techniques to ensure they hire right candidates who meet corporate leadership expectations. Such recruitment tools include StrengthFinder, Facet5, Holgan HPI, Myers Briggs MBTI and Marston DISC. These tools try to establish the link between personality and leadership traits. There are experts in Zambia who can help administer these tools.
Why is it important that we talk about leadership? The environment in which corporates are conducting business is changing daily. This includes ideological and geopolitical changes like the stand point in USA – China relationship, Financial technology – FINTECH, Blockchain and virtual currencies. This is calling for a new kind of leadership, that is developed earlier on in ones career. The leaders must now possess much wider skills and be more flexible than before. Leaders must learn and relearn new skills every two to three years.
Desired type of leadership
There are various types of leadership the organizations desire to build in their people leaders. These could
be categorized as: Situational Leadership, transformational leadership and transactional leadership. Organizations requires a bit of each of these styles in their leaders.
Situational Leadership proposes that effective leadership requires a rational understanding of the situation and an appropriate response. It emphasizes experience. However; this leads to inconsistent applications across the organization as this is applied by individual based on their experience.
Transformational leadership proposes that leaders have a clear idea of where they want to go, are passionate and motivating to others. They are innovative and challenging. They communicate a vision and are intellectually stimulating.
Transaction leadership focuses on the exchange that occur between the leaders and their team members. They organize and manage their team and resources to achieve a common goal more effectively.
The goal for leadership development is not to confine leadership growth to definitions and theories. It is to create visionary leaders who can interpret the vision, motivate, inspire and are convincing. Courageous leaders that can take challenges, accept to learn and relearn their beliefs. In today’s environment you want to develop your leaders into disruptors. Leaders who can take on new technologies and disrupt the markets with innovative products and services. This could mean using the internet as a base of disrupting the market at a speed only the leaders determine. To build such leadership capability requires continuous staff development and continuous staff challenges.
Changing Environment
In the context of the ever changing environment leadership and leadership development is being reshaped constantly. At this speed of change virtual learning is the only way that can support continuous leadership development. There isn’t enough time for relearning using the classroom format. The use of Unified Meeting, ZOOM, Bluejeans, SmartMeet comes to mind as tool that are speeding the uptake of new leadership styles. Leaders should be on a constant leadership development program; through self-paced learning, coaching and mentorship. In other words, organizations should develop a learning organization on one hand and an entrepreneurial organization on the other. This entails a total mindset ship on the part of the organization. Invest in leadership to succeed.
In order to succeed in leadership development in an organization, you need to ensure you pass a simple self-test. Consider the following questions:
• Do you have the right networks to help you see opportunities before competitors do? • Are you comfortable challenging your own and others’ assumptions? • Can you get a diverse group of people to buy in to a common vision? • Do you learn from mistakes? • Do you share lessons leant with people leaders in your organization? • Are you ready to accept internal disruption from your disrupters?
Scoring four out of five in this simple test would mean that you are not ready as an organization. You need to score six. Why? Competition is tough and unforgiving. What then should organizations do to build capability to pass the selftest. To add dynamic thought leadership to an organization, leadership development should
start from recruitment. This should be followed by continuous development for leaders at all stages of leadership development. Organizations should have an inbuilt Continuous Development Program (CDP). Build a learning organization.
Continuous Development programs in organizations positions and enables members of staff to grow and deliver shareholder value in a competitive and volatile environment. Properly developed leaders know how to best execute on their company’s strategy and get the most out of their teams.
The Approach to Leadership Development
Research over the years has shown that people learn best in their natural works environment. The 70/20/10 rule confirms that 70% of learning takes place in the work place. 20% learning from colleagues, while only 10% is classroom learning. Therefore; the best place to change and develop new mindset is in the work environment. Executive Leadership programs partnering with professional institutions or Universities can achieve this goal. If properly implemented this will create behavioral change. The following is a systematic approach that can be adopted by any committed organization.:
• Select a pool of staff with talent and potential. • Introduce them to a series of growth mindset skills and challenges • Create problem solving groups among them and challenge them to complete the tasks in a defined time • Leave problem-behaviors in the past and focus on identifying and creating the new desired behaviors. • Enable learning by use a questioning approach that facilitates self-insight, instead of focusing on giving advice. • Provide knowledge, skills, and practice to enable the development of new “mental maps” that become “hardwired circuitry” over time. • Drive intentional repetition and practice these new behaviors to create fluency and sustainable change. • Challenge the set groups to implement the ideas as change agents • Set a clear reward structure for
success
The results of such growth pods should be celebrated across the organization to spur sense of achievement. If well implemented the growth pods can be spun off as independent business subsidiaries or business revenue centers.
Selection and Job Fit audition
Leadership development starts with careful selection, recruitment and reassignment of people with capability and talent. In order to understand the best way to enhance leadership development we need to look at an example: A corporate has a target to build a strong talent pipeline that would be the core leaders of the organization in three years’ time:
• The organization put up an advert in the newspaper and on its website for 5 graduate trainees. • Candidates are asked to submit their application via the company’s website • On the website candidates are asked to complete a “Facet5 questionnaire”.
The three deliberate steps above sends a signal to applicants that the organization is computer driven, is looking at a wider application pool and that selection is using tools that will help pick the best candidate.
NOTE: Facet5 is a personality profiling system. It is based on research done at the Edinburg University, in the 1980s. The facet5 of the “Big5” model is generally considered by psychologists to be the best way of understanding behavior. On completing the questionnaire, the system produces a comprehensive multi part report on how an individual is likely to behave at work: Report shows how best to manage the candidates, what their works strengths are, and their individual work preferences.
This prepares management to select individuals best suited to the values and beliefs of the organization. Further, this online selection indicates that the organization is looking for graduates with basic computer literacy. Pushing candidates to the website allows potential employees to appreciate the company profile, products, culture and potentially the vision. This is a tactical way of starting leadership development even before new staff are onboarded.
Once the selection is complete; the organization should take the new joiners through a comprehensive onboarding program. The onboarding should be designed to orient the new joiners to the corporate culture, products and processes. However, the most
important reason why onboarding should be comprehensive is to select best bets among the new joiners and start them on a leadership development journey. It is common for the best bets to be put on a management development program or leadership development program. Financial institutions are known to put their best bets on a Global Leadership program where candidates meet other new joiners from all over the world in a Global Leadership program. Such programs allow cross pollination of ideas, building self-confidence, and challenging stereo types. This also manages inherent cultural biases.
The candidates who are on the leadership development program should be divided according to areas where they will eventually be deployed; e.g. Finance, marketing, Procurement etc. This should be followed by them being enrolled on professional programs such as the Zambia Institute of marketing Professional Diploma, The Zambia Institute of Purchasing and Supply Professional Diploma, The Zambia Institute of Accountancy Professional Diploma etc. The reason for this early professional orientation is to develop talent early. The earlier the talent is developed the earlier organizations start getting the benefits.
Transforming Your Leadership Development Program
You can transform your organization into a performance based organization by dedicating resources to develop any leader who is willing and ready to learn. Some of the things you could do are:
• Enroll your leaders on Executive
Leadership programs at leading universities • Hire personal coaches for leaders moving into new roles. • Build internal programs for high potential individuals
Modern thinking in leadership development suggest the following:
Develop an incubator lab where top potential candidates can meet to speak to the top leadership. Sharing corporate vision and cultural stories. Link up to professional bodies to sign up on Continuous Development Programs. Give them an opportunity to decide on areas the organization needs to improve. Allow them to innovate.
Challenge the innovators to work on a business opportunity in the organization. Give them resources to experiment and implement. Organization that have tried this have improved the bottom line by launching unique products and improved revenue margins. Creating compelling narratives to accompany projects, creates undeniable enthusiasm, energy, success and retains talent.
Leaders who succeed in innovation labs should be given an opportunity to actually lead. Targeted leadership development programs as indicated above creates new value for the business, it also creates a new vision for new leaders. Such leaders commit for the long term increasing staff retention and attracts talent from the completion. When leaders are developed from a base of such investment they feel they have invested in the business. They become advocates for the organization. Advocacy develops trust and trust improves employee net promoter score. This leads to well looked after clients leading to a high client net promoter score. Client net promoter score leads to return purchase raising revenue exponentially. That is the only reason for business. Therefore, leadership development is a good investment in the business.
Danny M Chanda - MBA Oxford Brookes, Dip Marketing, CIM, FZIM, MZIHR
Fellow of Zambia Institute of Marketing, Leadership Development Facilitator, Leadership Coach, Facet5 Coach, Currently responsible for Leadership Development for Standard Chartered Bank – Southern Africa
The year 2020 will go down in Zambian history as one of the most challenging. A lot happened during the year but one marked and unforgettable happening that left many lives devastated was the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. The pandemic ravaged the whole world and created so many uncertainties in many countries. Economies were locked down and people sent away from their jobs. In Zambia the outbreak of the pandemic just added salt to the wound because our economy was already slowing down and registering negative growth. The pandemic just aggravated the already dire situation and created acrimonious conditions detrimental to business growth. Marketing was adversely affected and many people in the discipline lost their jobs or worse still, those who remained worked in very difficult conditions. Top among the difficulties were reduced customer activities coupled with shrinking marketing budgets.
The Institute was not spared from these challenges and as a result many programmes were affected. The adherence to the activity calendar could not be achieved in the year following the Covid-19 guidelines issued by the Government through the Ministry of health. We saw our Annual General Meeting being postponed and deferred to another date while the Annual Marketing Conference was left in limbo. There were no possibilities of organizing the conference, in the manner we have traditionally done, as long as travel restrictions and the ban on gatherings remained in force. This unsettled the Institute but thanks to the ingenious Conference Organising Committee for the brilliant idea of finding the alternative to the predicament.
The creativity exhibited by the Conference Organising Committee was a clear indication that the situation we are in required everyone to put their ingenuity to test. It was a demonstration that we can actually find alternatives to continuing with our lives and businesses in the midst of the restrictions; life should not come to a standstill but that we must embrace the challenges and live with them, albeit with a cautious and purposeful approach. The birth of the Marketing Week was as a result of marketers discovering another way of sharing experiences
