Developing Leaders and Leadership Skills in Your Organization
Concurrent Session 4
Brief Abstract
Leadership is complex, and contrary to what we often see, promoting top-performers to leadership positions is not the solution. Leaders and future leaders need training to grow their leadership skills. This session explores two ways one organization is growing leaders: creating individual development plans and creating a Leadership Culture Code.
Presenters
Extended Abstract
According to a Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM) 2019 survey, leadership sets the tone of a company’s culture. Specifically, 76% of the participants surveyed stated their leader created the tone in their workplace and 58% of participants left a position because of their leaders (SHRM, 2019). Thus, leadership is important to an organization’s culture. The current literature shows us that leaders influence organizational performance, job satisfaction, organizational learning, employee turnover, citizenship behavior, and the well-being of their followers (Weberg & Fuller, 2019). Knowing this, it is critical that organizations have the “right” people in leadership positions. Perhaps this is why SHRM (2017) identified leadership development and future leadership identification as the number one concern for human resource professionals.
Knowing the importance of leadership and these facts, it is imperative organizations have a plan to identify leaders, develop future leaders, and train leadership competencies. Too many times, organizations choose to just promote a strong individual contributor to a leadership position and expect them to lead a team. This session discusses the importance of leadership and offers two ways one organization has addressed the complex problem of identifying and training leaders and future leaders. Specifically, the organization introduced organized succession planning and introduced a Leadership Culture Code. Both of these approaches will be discussed, and session participants will leave with ways to apply these approaches at their organization.
Succession planning is typically a 12-36-month process where organizations identify individuals who could step into key roles as the roles either become vacant or open with an organization (SHRM, n.d.). However, succession planning, to be successful, does not stop with the identification of the individual. Instead, succession planning extends into individualized development plans for these talented team members to prepare for future roles (SHRM, n.d.). One organization realized the importance of succession planning and introduced it in 2021. The approach used, which included a tiered rating system (ranking team member based on current performance and future potential), lead to 101 employees being identified as potential future leaders. These individuals then partnered with their leaders to create individual development plans. Individual development plans addressed next steps in an employee’s career, specifically what they would like to accomplish in the next one to two years. Additionally, employees and their leaders addressed what skill gaps, specific training needs and resources would be needed to meet those career goals. Finally, the employee and their leader identified individuals who could mentor and guide the employee in their development. Individuals who were not identified as receiving a succession plan at this time, were provided individual links to more than 40 internal trainings focused on various personal and professional development.
The second way the organization is approaching leadership training and development is through the creation of a Leadership Culture Code. The Leadership Culture Code is similar to a mission or vision statement and publicly proclaims the organization’s commitment to leadership and expectations of leaders in the organization. This Code will be used at the organization to hold leaders accountable, and empower followers to hold leaders accountable, at the organization. This session will provide an outline of what the Leadership Culture Code is, how it was created at the organization, and the training developed to support the code. Specifically, participants will learn about ways to improve leadership skills at their organization by explicitly stating leadership expectations and training the entire organization on these expectations.
In addition to learning about leadership identification and training, session participants can also expect to be engaged in the presentation. Specifically, the presenters will ask participants to share leadership development shortcomings they have encountered before via an interactive poll. The presenters will also engage session attendees by asking the group to collectively work together to come up with a sample Leadership Culture Code. Last, the presenters will prepare a Padlet with leadership development ideas for session participants. The session attendees will be asked to add to this Padlet and the link will be provided to all to keep as a helpful reference.
Session attendees can expect to take away several items from this presentation. First, they will gain knowledge about the importance of leadership and the power of leadership. Second, they will learn about succession planning and gain a framework for how this can be implemented at their organization or in their teams. Third, they will learn about establishing leadership accountability and training by establishing a clear definition of what it means to be a leader at their organization. This definition, accompanied by specific actions expected of leaders, can be used to create training and hold leaders accountable. Session participants will learn about this approach and leave with a way this could be implemented at their organization.
References
Society of Human Resource Management (2017). SHRM Researcher Overview: Leadership Development. https://www.org/resourcesandtools/tools-and-samples/toolkits/pages/ developingorganizationalleaders.aspx
Society of Human Resource Management (2019). The High Cost of a Toxic Workplace Culture. https://www.shrm.org/about-shrm/press-room/press-releases/pages/shrm-reports-toxic-workplace-cultures-cost-billions.aspx
Society of Human Resource Management (n.d.) Engaging in Succession Planning. https://www.shrm.org/ResourcesAndTools/tools-and-samples/toolkits/Pages/engaginginsuccessionplanning.aspx
Weberg, D. R., & Fuller, R. M. (2019). Toxic leadership: Three lessons from complexity science to identify and stop toxic teams. Nurse Leader, 17(1), 22-26. https://doi:10.1016.org/j.mnl.2018.09.006