Gary McDowell, Chief HR Officer with educational resource supplier Findel discusses how to get top grades in leadership development.
Leadership development needs to be a long-term initiative
For an organisation to evolve and grow in the right direction, those at the helm must aspire and be empowered to be great leaders. This represents an area where HR professionals as key business partners have a critical role.
Sometimes our experiences show us that leadership development has a risk of being ‘hit and miss’, yet given its importance, it cannot be overlooked. If scoped and executed poorly without a well-crafted, strategic mindset, it runs the risk of generating a simple, ineffective box-ticking exercise amongst leaders. Not only does this dilute leadership potential within an organisation, but it also builds a negative reputation of HR as a profession.
Instead, leadership development needs to be viewed as a long-term programme of activities grounded in an organisation’s mission, role, sector and values. There needs to be a culture where time is built in for development. This, in turn, will foster a forward-thinking mindset in all colleagues.
Not only will this demonstrate a firm commitment to personnel development, but it will also enhance HR’s profile as a mission-critical business partner and lay a strong foundation for wider workforce strategies.
Ensuring partners and development programmes align with your organisation
Although this is easy to say, how does it work in practice?
An example at Findel is the ‘permission to learn’ mindset we have begun to nurture over the years and continually develop, reflecting our role as an educational resource supplier.
By adopting this mindset with an ‘always on’ approach to learning and development, we are working to create a dynamic, forward-thinking atmosphere where self-improvement feeds into everything. We know this is a lengthy process but one we are determined to see through.
This outlook also influences which external partners we work with. As with any development tool, external partners must avoid a ‘vanilla’ programme which only serves to disengage colleagues. Helping us to avoid this risk involves scrutinising providers to ensure that programmes align with our goals, mission and values.
To make these programmes more impactful and resonant, it is important to consider leadership development centred around real issues and core business priorities.
At Findel, we apply this approach to our company-wide workforce development strategy which is tailored around the five core pillars of the business. Making it more dynamic is doing away with regular, timetabled appraisals to create an atmosphere of continual improvement rather than when a meeting with a line manager is due.
Harness science in leadership development
Many of us are aware of the use of behavioural sciences in corporate settings, for example, with our Myers Briggs tests. Yet when we think about leadership development, our experiences have taught us that another way to make it impactful is harnessing the power of modern science.
With our leadership development programme at Findel, we took this approach by using sophisticated psychometric testing to generate accurate behavioural profiles. This is something we are also looking to roll out wider across the business.
By having a leadership development programme which is interactive and personalised, bolstered by the behavioural profiles, we see a real opportunity to create our leadership cohorts that are empowered to do the best for themselves and their teams. Complementing this is the power of technology in modern HR practices through our commitment to digital development tools which helps nurture our dynamic ‘permission to learn’ environment.
Get leadership development pushed from all sides
