subject: What Are Best Practices For Developing Leaders From Within The Ranks? [print this page] A company has used Silicon Valley talent to seed expansion to other geographic locations as it has grown. It now finds itself short of leadership at the Silicon Valley home office. They now have a rebuilding initiative, led by the CEO and the VP of Operations. What are best practices for developing leaders from within the ranks?
Advice from a group of CEOs:
Develop a formal leadership development program. Build a profile or set of profiles that establish your expectations of leaders. This goes beyond simple job descriptions and includes behaviors, values and management communication skills. Identify the top leadership candidates with the company - say 10 people out of 200. For these individuals, identify personal goals and determine that these are consistent with the expectations set forth in your leadership profiles. Clearly communicate the roles and expectations that you have of future company leaders - both the upsides and the sacrifices that you anticipate that they will have to make. Team the leadership candidates 1-to-1 with mentors who will guide them.
One company has developed an "internal" Board of Directors whose members are both current and developing leaders. The internal board members are considered as advisors to the true Board of Directors. The see the strategic plan for the company, are coached on the values of the company, and are involved in key company decisions in an advisory capacity. This gives them the opportunity to contribute in a strategic way, and allows the leadership team to evaluate and assess both their potential as future leaders. It also provides information on where individuals can benefit from additional leadership training.
Consider a leadership "boot camp" program to groom potential leaders and weed out those who like the idea of leadership but not the reality.
Looking at this challenge from the background of a very hierarchical company, the following items are involved: time; talent; defining the traits for key positions; identifying candidates who appear to possess these traits; assigning leadership roles to these individuals in executing the annual strategic plan with senior managers mentoring the leaders in training; and including training and guidance in development of goals and objectives and professional development plans
There are a large number of online and other tools that help to assess leadership potential. One well-known set is the Myers-Briggs tools. There are also excellent tools and materials available from TTI Performance Systems, Ltd., including job benchmarking, skills inventories, values and motivators assessments and leadership assessments.
