Leadership Development: Research, Practice, and Sustainability

There are two general approaches adopted in studies of leadership development, broadly stated to include leader development. The first approach is training, in which a particular set of knowledge, skills, or abilities are targeted for intervention and improvement. In short, training provides proven solutions to known problems, whereas development helps people to better learn their way out of problems that could not be predicted.

One of the most endemic practical issues in the field is the tendency to take an episodic view of development: that is, there is an (implicit) assumption that development occurs only as part of a discrete program or a challenging job experience. It is not the experience but the learning from experience that is most important for development.

Participants reported that there are not enough opportunities to learn on the job. This is tragic because learning should be a daily, ongoing process regardless of the job. One of the most important tools needed to promote learning is feedback. It is an extremely valuable resource that is underused in many organizational settings. A basic principle in both goal setting and learning theories is that actions devoid of feedback are not as potent as actions with feedback in terms of learning. And perhaps even more important to learning than negative feedback is positive feedback, because it provides information as to what has been done appropriately in addition to providing reinforcement to motivate a repeat of behavior in the future. One concrete recommendation is to work with leaders in developing themselves and others, and to also develop the skills and confidence to deliver feedback on a regular ongoing basis.

Successful leadership development efforts require more than a brilliant plan; they require diligent execution and follow-through. Unfortunately, the majority of such initiatives fail because of weak execution and not because of poor strategy or a weak idea.

Succession planning needs to go beyond merely identifying potential future leaders to also understanding the developmental needs of these individuals and arranging the appropriate experiences to help them learn and develop. The primary reason that such plans are ineffective is because they tend to focus mainly on the identification of high-potential talent and ignore the need for ongoing development of these individuals.

“High potential” is typically someone who has been identified as possessing the potential to move eventually into a senior leadership position in the organization. As noted in recent surveys, less than half of the organizations actually had a program to accelerate the development of high-potential leaders.

It is considered a hallmark of an effective development initiative, efforts to evaluate the results of such initiatives are often forgotten or ignored. Unfortunately, most of the evaluation efforts are focused on participants’ reactions to the developmental program, with little attention to understanding whether the leader’s developmental experience had an impact on their behavior or the organization.

To conclude, the process is inherently dynamic and eclectic, so it makes sense to build theoretical frameworks that reflect these features.

María López-Escobar Barberá Human Resources Management