Reinforce Your Leadership Gains
By James Dowling
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This series has presented our take on seven high-leverage management actions of fifty total, that McKinsey & Company recommends CEOs adopt to improve ROI from their leader development programs. This installment addresses three interventions related to “Using system reinforcement to lock in change” quadrant.
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- “Have top team role model desired behavior for leadership programs (e.g., as coaches)” 4.9x
- “Adapt formal HR systems to reinforce leadership model (e.g., recruiting, performance evaluation)” 5.8x
- “Review current formal and informal mechanisms for building leadership skills, prior to staging and intervention” 5.9x
What’s at Stake:
At best, another investment that falls short of producing desired outcomes. Worst case, a high-profile program with little ROI AND a major distraction of leaders at senior levels in the process.
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What’s standing in the way:
Organizations need to rethink desired outcomes of their investment in leader development from developing individual leaders to developing organization leadership capability. Current practices can effectively develop people leadership skills in individuals but that’s only one-quarter of leadership capability, the People part. Current practices lack the process, technology and culture creation and leverage these other parts.
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What the solution looks like:
A leadership system that begins with the daily and transformational work of your leaders in the context of their objectives and operating conditions. A leadership system that adapts to changing conditions and objectives. Social and technical skill development integrate with the flow of leaders’ work. A community enabled program where your leaders build your leaders for the future while they meet today’s promises and prepare to accomplish tomorrow’s objectives.
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McKinsey says that when top team leaders role model desired behaviors, chances of success improve by a 4.9x multiplier. What if all leaders are expected to and are measured against those behaviors? According to McKinsey, that adds another 5.6 multiplier?
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Another 5.9x multiplier can be had by reviewing current formal and informal practices. We suggest integrating this into the fabric of intervention planning. Make it your first intervention.
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Consider a leadership development approach that integrates all ten interventions illustrated in the series and ask a team of leaders to answer the questions, “To what extent to current leadership and leadership development practices leverage these ten intervention themes?” then ask, “What capabilities do we need to close the gap between current and desired practices.”
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Build the shared resources that accelerate the work of leaders and that leaders can improve on over time; shared language that eliminates confusion and non-productive discussion when leaders come together to get work done; behavioral expectations that leaders can count on and leverage rather than defend themselves against and tough through; technology in the form of simple tools for creating and communication decisions, plans, and assignment; and a database of pre-made “Big Decisions” and “Choices” that empower leaders to decide and act quickly.