The Leadership Gap

Does your organization have a fail-safe leadership development and succession plan firmly in place?

 

According to a recent study by the Deloitte University Press, it is highly likely that your organization is caught in a “leadership gap”.

 

86% of the organizations that were surveyed stated that leadership development and succession planning in fact constituted an “urgent need”. However, only a mere 13% of these organizations held the conviction that their organization was doing an effective job of preparing for their next generation of leaders.

 

The critical challenge that H.R. departments find themselves confronted with is how to address the differing leadership needs throughout the various levels of their organization. In one regard, performance oriented millennial candidates seek a fast track to meaningful leadership roles.

 

On the other hand, mid-level leaders require enhanced opportunities to broaden the scope and depth of their abilities as a precursor to future leadership advancement. When it comes to senior level leaders, it is imperative that your organization maintain a serious commitment to mentoring its younger generation of leadership candidates. Senior leaders must be able to transcend generational diversity while freely sharing their experience and inherent knowledge of the organization, its nuances and potential pitfalls.

 

It is also critical for the senior level and executive leaders to demonstrate their buy-in to the leadership development and succession planning process. This tier of leadership needs to be actively involved and thoroughly engaged in grooming future up and coming leaders.

 

Additionally, your organization must comprehend that succession planning encompasses every level of your organization and extends far beyond its top executives. Attrition, competitor recruitment, injury, health issues and death far out number retirement as a consideration with respect to leadership succession.

 

The retirement or sudden loss of a competent leader not only creates a void, it directly impairs the functionality and continuity of the organization’s leadership dynamic. At the heart of the leadership development and succession planning issue lies the realization that qualified workers will in time succeed their supervisors, who will in turn succeed mid-level managers, who as well will succeed your organization’s senior executives.

 

A crucial key for successive leadership development and succession planning is the cultivation an appropriate mindset on the part of every member of your organization, from the organization’s boardroom to its boiler room.

 

Leadership is clearly the #1 talent issue of organizations globally. Business, industry and government find themselves hard pressed to develop leaders at all levels of their organizations.

 

The Leadership Academy… Changing the way organizations and people work, perform and live!

Copyright © 2014 Developing Forward | Thomas H. Swank, CBC | All Rights Reserved.

The Lack of Readiness

Do you and your organization constantly find that you are scrambling in an attempt to complete projects on schedule or meet other deadlines on time?

 

During my recent attendance at a high profile training event, I had the opportunity to observe a wide variety of people and organizations scrambling to get their act together at the very last minute. In one instance, I watched as the person who was responsible for arranging the catering for a three hour social event received a phone call 45 minutes into the event from the host facility informing him that all of the food which had been contracted for had already been consumed by the attendees.

 

The first thought that popped into my head was my old Boy Scout motto “Be prepared.” Undoubtedly, some valuable lessons resulted from this unsettling experience. It also serves to raise the question… How prepared are you, your organization and your people to meet your responsibilities?

 

Sadly, most organizations and their people simply don’t deal with tomorrow until tomorrow. The problems that occur, the important details that fall through the cracks and the failures that they experience, are invariably due to a lack of readiness.

 

There is a direct relationship between readiness and responsibility. Dietrich Bonhoeffer stated it this way…  “Actions springs not from thought, but from a readiness for responsibility.”

 

Quite often, what you do (or don’t do) speaks louder than any words that you could ever say. The same is true of your organization and its people. In reality, while you can shoot from the hip and hope to hit something, appropriate action requires advance planning if you are truly going to hit your mark and ultimately obtain the desired result outcome.

 

In the circumstance cited earlier, the failure to properly fact find and plan resulted in a number of undesirable outcomes. Following below are a few of the more obvious and costly outcomes from this situation:

 

The attendees went from being served the good food to having a lengthy break in service, only to eventually receive mediocre substitutes in place of the originally announced menu.

 

Overall event satisfaction by the attendees was diminished in the process, which could ultimately affect registration signups for future events and potential revenue for same.

 

Clearly, the host organization had to endure the embarrassment also resulted.

 

The catering chefs and staff were greatly inconvenienced by having to unexpectedly perform addition work which was not on their schedule for that workday.

 

The host organization lost its ability to negotiate in a timely fashion for these additional services, which resulted in having to pay top price for the extra food preparation and service.

 

As a result, the host organization wound up being considerably over budget due to its short sightedness in planning.

 

Post event organizational meetings to assess “what went wrong and why” resulted in a significant usage of man hours which further resulted in lost productivity.

 

The lesson to be garnered from this circumstance is that there is simply no substitute for thorough planning. Rest assured, that even with proper planning, unanticipated things may still potentially occur. However, rock solid planning will not only better prepare you for a successful outcome, it will help you in identifying potential pitfalls and problems for which you can then develop a contingency plan (which will further assure you a likely successful outcome).

 

In the words of one of my early mentors, “Plan your work… then work your plan.” When you heed this sound advice, you will find yourself, your organization and your people adequately prepared and ready for the responsibilities for which you are collectively and individually accountable.

 

The Leadership Academy… Changing the way organizations and people work, perform and live.
 
Copyright © 2014 Developing Forward | Thomas H. Swank, CBC | All Rights Reserved.