Human Capital Series - 3 - On leadership development...

These are some of the excerpts of an article which I helped co-create on the various initiatives one can do under the umbrella of leadership development...

Leadership competencies
Every company has it own take on what they want their leaders to accomplish. This wish list needs to be broken down into a series of winning behaviors. These behaviors can be further be grouped under various leadership competencies. These leadership competencies become the recipe for the development process. It provides the context to the basic development process and also gives cues on the design of the development process

Leadership Kindergarten
The fundamental tenet for every nursery or kindergarten is to create experiences around what the child needs to learn. This could be in the form of rhymes, action songs, jigsaw puzzles et.al which provide support to the basic framework of learning whether it is numbers or the alphabets. What organizations need to do is to create leadership nurseries for their employees- opportunities where the individual can work and learn. The essence of these programs is also to design experiences where the individual has to be exhibit these leadership competencies to solve and manage real life work situations. The experiences need to be created around class room training and board room interactions.

Leadership Mentors
A good practice to follow in these programs is to assign a leadership mentor. These mentors need to be professionals in the organization with high credibility and whom the entire organization admires and the junior management wants to emulate. Constant interactions with these role models reinforce various management behaviors and also serve as opportunities where the individual can use the mentor as a sounding board for bouncing off ideas and doubts. The role of the mentor is to also probe the various actions of the individual and delve deeper and ask questions on the rationale for various actions. These dialogues need to tease the reflective analysis skills of the individual and help him or her to question various exhibited behaviors. Reflective observation lays a key foundation in building the ability in the individual to cement his learnings from various diverse experiences and also connect them to the larger the structure in his / her mind.

Leadership Fox trot
While mentoring helps in the tutoring process, a more personalized approach is the ‘leadership fox trot’. Fox trot unlike most other dance forms around the world enables the pair of dancers to gradually match up steps and then encourages the dancers to develop their own signature style. The basic slow-slow-quick-quick rhythm helps the individual to slowly pick up pace and then match the routine of the leader. Such close interactions with leaders help in building confidence in the individual and also help to explore what suits best from him or her preferences - behaviors that suit the individual strengths of the person.

Leadership Musical chair
There is no substitute for the exposure different positions – with the changed job description and different expected work outcomes – it contributes to the overall development of the individual into a well-rounded professional. The metaphor of the different chair in each round is for the change assignments and the reducing number of chairs denotes the move up in hierarchy. This also helps in fostering a general management outlook in the individual rather than the targets and pressures of the respective function of business unit.

Leadership Podium
An experience and learning sharing process of the individual in front of the top management core of the organization build confidence in the person and also provides an opportunity to interact get the views of the wider leadership community. Organization needs to have a structured program where the individuals get an opportunity, on a periodic basis, for formalized learning sharing capsules. When this process is embedded in the operational fabric of the organization, it serves as a regular experience reckoner.

Leadership Chronicles
“Education is best imparted through fables” – one cannot over emphasize this notion. Whether it is our Panchatantra or Grimm’s fairy tales, we have always found their allegories build a basic sense of life, good, evil, socially acceptable actions in all its readers especially in their formative years. Leadership chronicles are what great leaders in their organization or industry did in various trying and dodgy times and how they prevailed over the obstacles. These ‘stories’ filter through the rank and file of the organization and become the subject of many a discussion. Whether it is the water cooler chat or the coffee table tête-à-tête, these discussions are indispensable in creating an atmosphere of positivity within the organization.

Leadership project management dashboards
These programs and initiatives need to have a serious focus on execution. Although organizations have several such implementations going on at every point of time, what they lack is the discipline to create a robust feedback and control dashboard which also encourages the rigor of project management on to some of the less tangible initiatives. Having execution metrics is also fundamental to the sustainability of these initiatives.

They say that HR budgets are always under the axe when the business cycle hits a rough turn ; little needs to be emphasised that the HR role needs to play the vital role of the blacksmith to hone the skills of its leaders and enable business to meaningfully circumvent every new challenge ...