A strong call for improvement in developing leaders
The 2016 Leadership Development Survey conducted by Borderless Research℠ captured insights from close to 1,000 senior executives across a range of industries. The high rate of response and depth of feedback demonstrate that leadership development is of high relevance and is considered a key enabler of business strategy and growth.
Key findings
The Borderless perspective
The level of satisfaction with the effectiveness of and investment in leadership development is low, suggesting that either too little effort is made by organizations to establish leadership development programs or that what has been established fails to meet the expectations of executives.
“In prioritizing all of the elements that go into building a successful business, it would seem that many corporate heads consider leadership development to be a low priority ‘nice to have’ instead of a strategic imperative,” says Niels-Peter van Doorn, Head of Leadership Consulting at Borderless.
While most argue that effective leadership is necessary to achieve positive business results, the lack of focus on development suggests that leaders are expected to possess all essential leadership skills innately. This is reflected in corporate in the trend to “hire in” senior executives instead of growing and advancing executives from within. “Over-reliance on external hiring can frustrate and demotivate teams, and could consequently exacerbate internal organizational challenges,” Niels-Peter cautions.
To that end, Borderless offers the following six recommendations to establish robust leadership development programs:
The author surveyed 5,600 workers from various industries from January 2019 to December 2021, finding that worker dissatisfaction not only starts as early as age 25 — it’s been here since before the pandemic started. Her advice: aim for work-life alignment, not work-life balance. Find out what drives them as an individual — and reshape their jobs together. Engage them in the recruiting process.
There’s been a lot of buzz about a 4-day workweek. But it will be the ‘4 + 1’ workweek that ultimately wins out: 4 days of “work” and 1 day of “learning.” Several forces are converging in a way that point toward the inevitability of this workplace future.
How can leaders help their teams combat change exhaustion — or step out of its clutches? Too often, organizations simply encourage their employees to be resilient, placing the burden of finding ways to feel better solely on individuals. Leaders need to recognize that change exhaustion is not an individual issue, but a collective one that needs to be addressed at the team or organization level.
