Do organisations limit leadership development to 'hi-pos'?

- by Bernd Möhle

"Organizations invest billions annually on a success curriculum known as "leadership development," which ends up leaving so much on the table. Training and development programs almost universally focus factory-like on inputs and outputs — absorb curriculum, check a box; learn a skill, advance a rung; submit to assessment, fix a problem. Likewise, they leave too many people behind with an elite selection process that fast-tracks "hi-pos" and essentially discards the rest. And they leave most people cold with flavor of the month remedies, off sites, immersions, and excursions — which produce little more than a grim legacy of fat binders gathering dust on shelves."

What if, instead of stuffing people with curricula, models, and competencies, we focused on deepening their sense of purpose, expanding their capability to navigate difficulty and complexity, and enriching their emotional resilience? What if, instead of trying to fix people, we assumed that they were already full of potential and created an environment that promoted their long-term well-being?

I found this thought in a Harvard Business Review Blog about a year ago. Interestingly, the more time elapses, the more valuable the thought is to me. Perhaps because it challenges the status quo of many leadership development initiatives, but certainly because it highlights that still (too) many strategic learning initiatives focus primarily on the "hi-pos", while the same organisations put much less emphasis on yet another core population that also needs development: the senior leaders. No doubt, it is good to develop the "hi-pos" for all the good reasons that we know, and a change in the set-up of leadership development programs has clearly taken place over the past 3-8 years as a good part of such programs are dedicated to self-reflection exercises. This undoubtedly helps the next generation of top executives to lead more impactful, more authentic and to better cope with the uncertainty and change that will never go away.

I believe that it is fair to say that most senior leaders who hold important positions today had to get there without the support of top notch business schools who helped in the self-reflection process when they were at mid-career level. I guess the question that I am putting forward here is: why do apparently still many organisations put significantly less effort into the development of their leaders who have made it already to the top? Why do they miss out on the chance of equally developing their senior leadership? Of course tight budgets are a reality, but is that all? 

Source:http://global-executive-coaching.blogspot.ch