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Tuesday, February 09, 2010

Trends Affecting Leadership Development in 2010

The most significant emerging trends affecting leadership development, as identified in a Human Resources Executive recap of the 2009/2010 Trends in Executive Development: A Benchmark Report, are: 

  1. Impact of the Economy. It means that there is more pressure now than before to prepare leaders who can weather the storm and navigate their companies successfully through the turbulence.
  2. Bench Strength is No. 1. "Lack of bench strength" was identified as the second most influential factor impacting executive development and "Increasing bench strength" was the top key objective in executive development.
  3. Accelerate the Development of High Potentials. Respondents placed much greater emphasis on the identification and development of high potentials in the 2009 survey than in any of the prior surveys.
  4. Strategic Thinkers and Those Who Can Inspire. Areas in which the next generation of executive leaders are weak are the ability to think strategically, lead change, create a vision and rally others around that vision.
  5. Better Metrics. A standard for measuring participant outcome has become more universal. This is a notable shift from just four years ago, when evaluation metrics was a much more fragmented practice.
  6. Leader-as-Teacher Model. The use of leaders as teachers has become a best practice that is growing in popularity. Respondents noted that it is a particularly effective component in their executive-leadership programs.
Read a lengthy excerpt of the study here

1 comment:

Jason Wilton said...

I think it's great news that this recessionary period actually underlined the need for leadership development. It would have been easy for many people kill efforts in response to financial challenges. That they didn't is a testament to the value of developing leaders.