Leaders for the Future: Development Has to Account for Change and Uncertainty

Topics: Capability Planning

Overview

When we first looked at the results of CorpU's Leadership 2012 Study, we were all struck by the finding that just 3% of study respondents felt that their companies had the bench strength (i.e., the leadership talent) needed to meet the strategic business challenges of the next five years. Yet when we looked at the programs and experiences they were offering executives, senior leaders and high potentials, these very same companies were doing what the industry would consider all the “right things.”

Since many of the leadership programs were, according to the CorpU study, either updated or totally changed in the last year or so, I thought that perhaps the problem was simply that they hadn’t been doing it right long enough. Certainly some of the most successful companies at developing leaders have been at it a lot longer.

However, I’m beginning to think that the standard succession planning process ignores two critical facts when developing competency models and development programs.