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What Works for Developing Leaders Within The Ranks?

By: Sandy McMahon

As they have grown, a local company has used talent from their home office to seed new offices around the country. They now find that leadership is short at headquarters. This has led to a rebuilding effort, with the CEO partnering with the VP of Operations in the effort. The biggest question in the minds of the CEO and VP is whether what they are doing is effective. What have you done to successfully build leaders within your ranks?

Advice from a Group of CEOs:

Develop a formal Leadership Development Program. This starts with identifying the top leadership candidates with the company - say the top 5% or 10%. For these individuals, identify their personal goals and determine whether these are consistent with the expectations that you have of leaders within the company. Clearly communicate the roles and expectations that you have for future company leaders - both the upsides and the sacrifices that you anticipate they will have to make to fill the needs of leadership positions. Team the leadership candidates 1/1 with mentors - senior leaders of your current team - to guide them.

Consider an "internal" Board of Directors for both current and developing leaders. Members are considered advisors to the true Board of Directors, understand company strategy, are coached on company values, and are involved in an advisory capacity in key company decisions. This can be a formalized program within the company which will add to both the prestige of associates' positions and raise the bar of expectations that you have for them.

Consider a leadership "boot camp" program to groom potential leaders and weed out those who like the idea of leadership more than the reality. This can be designed in-house if you have the talent and expertise or there are many consulting firms who can design and implement a boot camp program for you.

From the standpoint of a very hierarchical company, the following items are involved:

1. Time - the time to design and plan a leadership development system.

2. Talent - either in-house talent, consultants or outside resources to design and, at least initially, oversee the program.

3. Defining the traits for key positions - this can be taken from current job position descriptions but must go beyond the responsibilities and tasks that each job position fills. Ideally it includes a description of the leadership or performance traits that you want to see in each position.

4. Identifying candidates who appear to possess these traits both by publicizing the opportunity and from within the performance evaluation process.

5. Assigning leadership roles to candidates selected in executing the annual strategic plan - with senior managers mentoring leaders-in-training. This can be an enriching experience for both the candidates and the senior managers and helps to build and reinforce company culture.

6. Include training and development in professional development plans for each employee.

Investigate employee some of the many assessment and evaluation tools, for example the Myers-Briggs tools or Sandler Sales tools.

Article Source: http://articles.tiptopweb.info

Sandy McMahon is publisher of Ceo2Ceos (Ceo2Ceos.com), a non-commercial site for executives to share best practices. He is also President of Executive Forums of Silicon Valley. With over 20 years of executive experience, Sandy has a BA from Brown, an EdM from Harvard, and an MBA from Duke.

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What Works for Developing Leaders Within The Ranks? addthis_pub = 'ex_plo_rer';

What Works for Developing Leaders Within The Ranks?