A question from a great leadership reader:

“I am a recent post-graduate in the UK (Masters in International Relations) and want eventually to work in development. My question to you regards the best use of my skills. I feel that I am a leader and I want to put that calling to work. My research has led me to Management Consultancy as a way of learning my trade, with the view of learning the skills that an effective manager/leader needs, and then crossing-over into development work later on in my career.

Do you think that management consultancy would be the best way to develop my leadership skills?”

First of all, congratulations on completing your Masters! And good for you for seeking career advice from a variety of sources.

I’m glad you’ve asked this question. I love to mentor and give career advice, and this is an article that I’ve been pondering for a while, so it’s a good excuse to finally write it.

You’ve actually asked three different questions, maybe without realizing it, so I’ll provide three different answers.

Career Paths to Leadership:
I think it’s great that you’ve recognized that “leadership” is a calling, and that you already refer to yourself as a leader. Leadership is not a position, it’s the ability to enable others, and organizations, to achieve extraordinary results (That’s just my definition, by the way, there are hundreds of others).

By now, you may have already have opportunities to lead in school, your community, sports, clubs, or in church. Every one of those opportunities is a part of a lifelong curriculum of leadership development. Leadership is learned by doing, though others (positive and negative role model), sometimes hardships, and by more formal learning (books, courses, and websites like this one and others). There are no natural born leaders! Great leaders become great because they have a passion for the calling and work hard at it. They seek out and accumulate a large amount and variety of new experiences. They can then take these experiences, reflect, learn, and incorporate new ideas and behaviors into who they are.

It’s also important to have a clear idea of what leadership looks like. There have been hundred of books written on leadership – authors like Bennis, McCall, and Kotter come to mind. You can also learn a lot about leadership through biographies.

Once you know what it looks like, you need to know where you stand against the target. You do this by self-reflection, and more importantly, by continuously seeking feedback. Then, establish a written, specific plan to close the gaps.

Leadership development is truly a lifelong journey; you’ll never “get there”, but it can be an incredibly rewarding ride.

Career Paths to Management:
The principles of lifelong learning development I described for leadership would also apply to the discipline of management. This is convenient, because the best managers are also great leaders. I’d offer two additional pieces of advice on how to become a great manager:

To be a successful general manager, I believe it’s important to take a “Z” career path instead of a “T” career path. A “T” career path is a vertical progression of promotions within the same company, geography, and function. You climb the ladder, and at some point, you end up in a general management role being responsible for the function you were great at and several new functions you know very little about. These managers often fail, because they struggle with the unfamiliar, and tend to gravitate towards the one they are more adept at. Some can master this challenge, but the learning curve is usually steep and long.

A “Z” career path consists of a series of lateral moves, then a vertical promotion, another series of lateral moves, and on and on. This career path produces the most effective general managers. In order to do this, you have to be willing to accept lateral development moves throughout your career. At one company I worked at, in order to be considered for a business unit president, you had to have worked in two different geographies, two different functions, and two different industries (2X2X2). While it may take a little longer and require patience and a willingness to take risks and learn, it will increase your chances of success.

Read More…

A leadership competency model should serve as the foundation for any organization’s leadership development system. An effective model allows an organization to clearly define what leadership competencies are required in order for an organization to be successful, both now and in the future. Leadership development systems (selection, assessment, development, performance management, succession planning) can then be aligned to support the development of these competencies.

While the idea has been around for at least 20 years, a recent Right Management survey says that half of all corporations today have no model for identifying and developing the leadership competencies needed to drive change in their organizations.

I’ve had the opportunity to develop leadership competency models at a variety of different organizations. At my current company, there was no common model when I first got here. In fact, there were over 20 different models. We now have one, with a fully aligned system aligned around it. At my last company, I was involved in the development of two company-wide models, for two different CEOs. (Question: How often should you change a leadership model? Answer: Either when there’s a significant shift in the business strategy that requires new skills, or when a new CEO comes in and decides that everything the previous CEO did was wrong.)

Each time, I’ve learned a few things and have refined the approach. I’m sure it’s not perfect, and I’m very sure it’s not what the textbooks would say, but it’s worked for me. I’ll also provide a list of other options, along with my opinion of the pro’s and cons for each.

Option 1: Hire a top-notch consultant that specializes in leadership competency modeling.
There are some great companies out there, like Hay, Hewitt, Right, and many other that will come in and work with you to understand your business strategy, interview top performers and key stakeholders, develop, test, and validate a model with behaviorally anchored rating scales (BARS), and develop an implementation strategy. Actually, with an unlimited budget, this is probably the best approach. You know you’re getting a valid and reliable model. The disadvantages of this approach are money and time. I’ve never worked in an organization with an unlimited budget (maybe, someday), and CEOs usually have little patience when you tell them something like this is going to take 14 months – and cost $100,000.

Option 2: Read a book, go to a seminar, and try to do option 1 yourself.
Not a bad option if you’re a do-it-yourselfer with a limited budget. However, it may actually take you more time because you’ve never done it before, you’ll make a lot of mistakes, and you may end up with an invalid model that’s worthless. I’ve witnessed this approach – it’s a long and lengthy process (if you follow what the book or guru says to do), and by the time the model is finished, there’s no time, patience, or interest left in actually doing something with the model.

Option 3: Buy a model.
The argument for this approach is “why re-invent the wheel”? There are already research-based, proven, tested and validated leadership models out there, like PDI, CCL, Lominger, and DDI. They’re all good; I’d recommend any of them. By buying an existing model, you also save time that would be wasted developing the model and can re-direct that time to assessment, selection, and development. There would be some cost involved – for a license to use the model (no, you can’t use them without paying for them, please) – but not as much as the build option.

The only disadvantage of this approach is stakeholder buy-in. That may sound like a flimsy reason, and perhaps even weak HR leadership. After all, we wouldn’t ask for “buy-in” to the periodic table of elements, right? If it’s right, it’s right, no questions asked. However, I’ve tried it, and so far I have yet to find a CEO or management team that’s willing to take a “generic” model and apply it to their organization. These are big, strong egos, and that’s a powerful force to overcome.

Option 4: Hybrid (my recommendation):
This is a practical, cost-effective, yet effective version of options 1-3 combined.

1. Obtain all of the business strategy documentation you can get your hands on. Conduct executive interviews to learn about business challenges and leadership requirements to address those challenges. Start with the CEO and work you way down a couple layers.

2. Review existing competency models (from option 3). Learn the language and terminology. In a way, they’re all saying the same thing in slightly different ways.

Line them all up and look for the common themes, combining or changing terms so that they make sense to your organization. Avoid “HR-speak”, and stick to common sense, business language.

3. Pick out the key competencies that would really make the biggest difference in the success of your business. Go back to your interview notes and highlight the phases that you heard over and over. Use that same language (for buy-in), but cross-reference the phrase to ensure they are part of at least two research-based models.
8-12 competencies is probably a good number, if only for focus. (a good test one year later is to ask managers if they can name them all).

4. Review the competency model with your senior team for refinement and buy-in. Repeat the process with the next level of management and other key stakeholders, each time tweaking the model less but allowing ample time for discussion and understanding.

Finally, create a strategic leadership development model (1-2 pages, or slides) – to show the connection between the business strategy, the competency model, and the alignment of the leadership system. Polish up the model, make it sing - get some professional help if you need it.

Review this with the senior team, along with a communication plan to support the introduction of the model to the rest of the organization.

By the way, while the development of a leadership competency model is critical, deployment of that model is even more important. But that’s the topic of another article.

Source

Welcome to the 3rd edition of The Leadership Development Carnival!

This month’s edition takes a political flavor. Recently, a new vice-president candidate has emerged out of nowhere, Sarah Palin, from “the great state of Alaska”. She’s taken a lot of media criticism for her lack of leadership experience, so I thought I’d dedicate this carnival to her, as a way to help get her ramped up for her new potential leadership role.

I received over 60 submissions, and after sifting through the duplicates and irrelevant ones, settled on the following 42. Like last month, I’ve put a few selected posts into a very biased and partisan “featured attractions” category. While these are the ones I thought were the best of the best, the rest are pretty darn good too.

So Sarah, here’s a slate of leadership development advice from bloggers all around the world:

Featured Attractions:

I’ll start with advice on the importance of listening, from Nina Simosko, a strong proponent of woman leaders, with I’m Sorry, Did You Say Something? posted at NinaSimosko.com.

Next up Art Petty, with some advice on how to engage your staff, with Do Your Employees Truly Believe That They Can Make A Difference? posted at Art Petty on Management.

You should always pay attention to whatever Wally Bock says. Here’s Interpersonal skills and leadership development posted at Three Star Leadership Blog.

Make sure your staff knows exactly what’s expected of them with Chris Young’s Improving Employee Performance Through Coaching Score Cards posted at Maximize Possibility Blog.

Sarah, you’ll be needing to “gut it out” in the upcoming months, so here’s Jim Stroup on Staying the course when the work is tough Managing Leadership posted at Managing Leadership.

Perhaps a little “Zen” might help, so here’s Mark Stelzner on Zen and the Art of HR Industry Survival posted at Inflexion Point.

You’ll need to pay attention to the importance of culture, so here’s Natalie Cooper with Does a business need a soul? The key for competitiveness and growth posted at Changeboard.

OK, this next one’s not has nothing to do about leadership development, it’s about that hair. I’m just a big fan of Laurie Ruettimann’s Punk Rock HR and her newly branded HRM Today.

How can those who want to change their environment do it? Wayne Turmel, the Cranky Middle Manager, talks to Art Kleiner about his book “The Age of Heretics”…check it out.

You’ll need a leadership philosophy, so take a look at Phil’s Leadership Philosophy: it’s the little things that count! posted at What’s New On The Happy Manager.

And, as you are selecting your new staff, remember, talent is everything. Bruce Lewin presents The war for talent is over and we’ve won! posted at Four Groups’ Blog.

Sarah, please don’t stop reading now! You’ve still got a lot to learn (hey, don’t we all) as a leader, so here’s some more great leadership development advice:

Mary Jo Asmus presents Increasing Your Social IQ posted at Intentional Leadership.

Mag Herrera presents A Shining Job Interview: How to Succeed posted at Life, Money & Development.

Anya presents My favourite personal development books posted at Gavin Ingham.

Sally Huss presents WHAT SURROUNDS YOU? by Sally Huss posted at Sally Huss - Addicted to Happiness!.

Alvaro Fernandez presents Neurogenesis and Brain Plasticity in Adult Brains posted at SharpBrains:.

Ann Covey presents Deciding To Decide posted at Janice Bastani Women In Business Blog.

Vidyut Kale presents Leadership and Leaders posted at Adventures in India.

George L Smyth presents One Minute How-To - How To Uncover Extraordinary Breakthroughs posted at George L Smyth.

Louise Manning presents Wasting energy posted at The Human Imprint.

Stan Ward presents Think Different posted at Idea Leaders.

Dawn Abraham Life Coach presents At Last New and Invigorating Ways to Build Motivation posted at Qualified Life Coach.Com.

Nadege presents Are you playing to win or are you playing not to lose? posted at Clearly Envision.

Mitesh Solanki presents 10 Greatest Mistakes While Brainstorming posted at Invent Creativity.

Dr. Joe Capista presents How a Vision Statement Can Influence Your Business Success posted at The Success Triangle.

Ed Konczal presents The Best Companies For Leaders Surveys Humm, I have a Problem Corporate Eye posted at Corporate Eye.

Stephen Martile presents A Sign of a Great Leader posted at FreedomEducation.ca by Stephen Martile.

axel presents Learning To Apologize posted at axel g.

Shawn Driscoll presents 3 Leadership Traps posted at Shawn Driscoll.

Barbara Schreiber presents 6 Unwritten Rules to Advancement in the Workplace (Professional Networking 2.0) posted at Britannica Blog.

Mike King presents Determining and Sharing Your Core Values posted at Learn This.

Shamelle presents 7 Career Advancing Tips To build An Impeccable Relationship With Your Boss posted at Enhance Life.

Chris Bailey presents Bring Your Staff Into Your Community posted at Connection Cafe - A nonprofit technology and online philanthropy blog by Convio.

Rich Maltzman, PMP presents Scrappiest Project Management Contest Ever posted at Scope crêpe.

Elizabeth Harrin presents Book review: Leadership Skills for Project and Programme Managers posted at A Girl’s Guide to Project Management.

Peter Murphy presents How To Keep A Conversation Going - The 10 Simple Steps posted at Communication Skills Power.

Gergely Gazdag presents Solving problems as a leader posted at GregRichBlog.com.

Erik Samdahl presents Workforce planning: Building the yellow brick road posted at Productivity Blog.

Chris presents Get Promoted Faster by Looking After Your Boss - Part 1 posted at ProsperingServant.com.

Drew presents 10 Tips on How to Speak Effectively in Public posted at Learning the Art of English Conversation.

Elle presents It’s Your Ship: Management Techniques from the Best Damn Ship in the Navy posted at defining someday.

And finally, sneaking in with a late 3:00am post, Anne Maybus presents The Connected and Committed Leader - a review posted at The Tall Poppy.

That’s it! Sarah, I hope you, and the rest of our readers, benefit from this wealth of advice and knowledge. Go get ‘em!

The next issue of the Leadership Development Carnival will be on October 4th, with submissions due on October 3rd, using the carnival submission form.

It used to be if a hard charger wanted to advance in a company, moving to another location every 2-3 years was an accepted part of the unwritten deal. IBMers used to joke that IBM stood for “I’ve been moved”. In fact, if you were not being asked to move, it was a sign that you had fallen off the fast track.

One company I know of had a leadership development strategy that in practice was referred to as “2×2x2”. That is, in order to be prepared and considered for a top job, a rising manager had to work in at least 2 different countries, 2 different businesses, and 2 different functions. From a leadership development perspective, it was a great strategy. We know that the most effective way to develop leadership skills are full-time job changes, followed by challenging assignments. Large, diverse companies, with multiple locations and lines of businesses provides a manager with all kinds of opportunities to stretch, learn, build new networks, and broaden functional capabilities.

Of course, there have always been inherent challenges with this kind of leadership development strategy. Executives often don’t want to give up star performers. They also aren’t always willing to take the risk of taking on someone else’s star performer that doesn’t have the typical experience (and if you’ve ever been burned by agreeing to take a “star” that really was a “slug” you’d be gun-shy about making the same mistake again). Job changes can be disruptive, for the manager and the business. But somehow we’ve managed to deal with these challenges recognizing the longer-term benefits and the greater good.

Lately, however, I’ve noticed a shift in high potential managers willingness to take a developmental job change if it means packing up and relocating. And I’m not talking about moving to Afghanistan here, these are often very desirable U.S. communities. Managers are willing to pass up promotions, larger and more prestigious assignments, and the opportunity to be considered for larger roles. The reasons are often a spouse’s job, family in the area, or just liking where they are. This unwillingness to move is creating serious talent shortages. I’ve talked to some of my talent management colleagues, and it seems this is becoming an issue with a lot of companies.

So what are the answers? Here are a few ideas, although I’d love to hear from anyone who has other ideas on how to address this challenge.

1. Examine your relocation package. The obvious answer, but a manager should at least be made whole for any move and possibly come out a little ahead to compensate for the disruption and risks.
2. Identity high potentials at lower levels, where there’s often more willingness to move, and start developing a deeper, larger pool of leadership candidates.
3. Openly discuss what it means to be a “high potential” with your candidates. Talk about what the company is willing to do for them, and what they need to be willing to give back in return. If relocation is part of the deal, then address the pros and cons head-on, early, instead of bringing it up for the first time as a part of a job offer.
4. Sell the benefits of relocation. While a move to a strange place can be disruptive, it can also be a big adventure. I’ve had managers tell me that their experiences in China or Europe, with their families, while initially difficult, turned out to be the best years of their lives. The family bonded like never before, they were exposed to new and rich experiences, and it forever changed their perspectives.
5. Collect examples of positive relocation stories. Often we only hear about the horror stories, and those stories become company legend. Recruit managers who have benefited from moving and ask them to be ambassadors for relocation.
6. Be a chamber of commerce for the communities you are trying to attract talent to. I’ve heard of managers being unwilling to move to awesome communities because they just don’t know enough about them.
7. Don’t ignore the spouse and the rest of the family. “Trailing spouses” can make great employees. Can you make a job offer to the spouse? You could end up with a great “two for one” deal (with ½ the relocation costs!).
8. Consider temporary moves. A 6 month assignment can often be as developmental as a two year assignment. Can the manager try it out and commute back and forth, giving them time to get used to the new environment and then make a decision?

Again, please comment if you have additional ideas on this challenge.

The performance and potential matrix (9 box grid) is one the best talent management tools I’ve ever used. Here’s a tutorial on how to use the tool:

What is it?
The matrix is used to evaluate an organization’s talent pool. Here’s the basic format:
The X axis (horizontal line) of 3 boxes assesses leadership performance and the Y axis of 3 boxes (vertical line) assesses leadership potential. A combination of Y and X axis makes up the box within the grid that the leader is placed. 1A - High Performance/High Potential, 3C - Low Performance/Low Potential, etc…

Why use it?
1. It’s a simple way to assess any population of leaders on two important dimensions
2. It’s a great way to facilitate a dialog amongst a senior leadership team. Teams use it to calibrate their expectations and ratings
3. With a good open debate, the multiple perspectives provide for a much more accurate assessment (vs. one person’s opinion)
4. The process can facilitate a shared sense of ownership for the organizations talent pool
5. It’s a great way to identify development needs and transition to development planning

How to use it
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