I met with someone recently who wanted some career advice because the last two organizations he worked for, he ended up with “awful, awful, awful leaders” (his exact words) – so much so that he quit shortly after starting – both times. He has learned that he is not willing to tolerate poor leadership at this stage in his life/career and fortunately, he has the financial ability to allow for this zero tolerance. Most people have to endure it.
Consistently, there are conclusions from industry reports that say that leaders lack incentive (both financial and nonfinancial) to develop their leadership skills; the other reasons for the lack of leadership development include: short-term thinking and lack of training.
Clearly, there is no culture of continuous learning and development in these organizations; it’s probably more old school style command-and-control. So how do we get leaders to develop and be high-performing?
It starts from the top-down and I even mean the Board of Directors. We need to recognize that (*effective*) leadership development does in fact directly impact the bottom line in tremendous ways. I say that because the top priority is almost always financially driven. The other benefit here is that we’re positively impacting people’s lives by creating better, more positive and engaging work environments that are much less stressful.
I posted a few polls on social media about the question around incentivizing leadership development and I asked: If an organization covers the investment of leadership development for a leader, should they require the person stay for X number of years? The majority voted no with the (very accurate) reasoning that leadership development benefits both the company and the individual. This stipulation would only make sense if there is a lack of security on the part of the organization because it would help the company feel more secure about the cost of their investment.
My take? You have to start somewhere… and if you develop people only to have them leave, that development still had a positive impact on other people in the organization and it’s part of fostering a culture of development and an expectation of high-quality leadership.
I’ve always wondered if offering a financial bonus for meeting a retention goal would help to incentivize high-quality leaders. Or, the opposite: demoting or penalizing a leader for not meeting a retention goal – which could be a good way to weed out the uncoachable leaders who aren’t cutting it. Either way, to do this effectively, you’d have to offer development opportunities for your leaders.
I spent a decade working in financial services and that industry is all about throwing money at employees without caring about leadership development. In the end, it didn’t work for retaining me because money wasn’t a top motivator for me and that’s also what we’re finding post-pandemic – people are seeking more engagement, purpose, and wanting to feel that their well-being is considered. Some people simply want to feel that their contribution is valued and recognized.
Another consistent contradiction in industry reports is that senior leaders recognize the need for leadership development, but HR consistently reports that they struggle getting buy-in from senior leaders for leadership development. There is definitely a lack of long-term thinking; we’ve become so reactive and so used to putting out fires that we aren’t proactively thinking about retaining and developing employees and making our training count with the highest ROI possible.
Unfortunately, in today’s tight labor market, developing and promoting from within is a requirement for company’s to succeed, even if you aren’t aiming for a competitive advantage in your industry.
Don’t be the reason my recent client leaves his next job. Turnover, especially at higher levels, is expensive.
If your organization does something to incentivize leadership development, I’d love to hear about it – whether it works well or doesn’t work well.
