Five Challenges that accelerate leadership development

The high levels of change demand increased leadership capabilities and the requires organisation to focus on the development of future leaders. The Center for Creative Leadership has studies the development of leadership for the last 38 years and have identified five key challenges that have facilitate the effective development of leadership:

• Challenge 1: Unfamiliar responsibilities. When you practice new skills and expand your knowledge base, you learn how to operate effectively when you are early in a learning curve.
• Challenge 2: Creating change. When you lead change, you learn to operate in ambiguous situations, think strategically, make tough decisions and persevere in the face of adversity.
• Challenge 3: Significant accountabilities. By expanding your role in terms of scope, scale, time pressure and accountability, you learn what it takes to be decisive, to work and learn at a fast pace and to have significant impact.
• Challenge 4: Managing across boundaries. Assignments that require you to collaborate across functions and business units or to work with people over whom you have no authority will strengthen your ability to influence others.
• Challenge 5: Dealing with diversity. By working with people of another culture, gender or background, you will be better prepared to adapt to different expectations and persuade people of different backgrounds to work together.

Organisation face an increasing leadership shortage, not having sufficient leaders to meet their organisations future needs. Given this leadership crunch the way organisations approach the development of leaders is critical.

• Have you included these five challenges as key components of your leadership development programme?
• Have you included these five challenges as part of your personal leadership development?

The management of attention through vision

“The scarcest resource for today’s business leaders is no longer just land, capital or human labor, and it certainly isn’t information. Attention is what’s in short supply..” - Thomas H. Davenport and John C.

In other words, it’s not about managing time effectively, its about managing attention….! In the book “Leaders: The Strategies for Taking Charge” Warren Bennis and Burt Nanus discuss the practice of managing attention through vision.

The management of attention through vision is about the creation of focus. Leaders are results-orientated people, they know what they want, they’re committed and focused on outcomes. It’s this intense focus and commitment to results, draws people to them. Effective leaders have a clear vision of the future. A clear vision guides effective action as it provides the all important bridge from the present to the future. Vision provides the necessary focus required to limit distractions and drive meaningful action. The intensity of the leaders vision coupled with the high levels of commitment in making the vision come to pass, creates a powerful force of momentum that draws people into the flow. It’s this passion and commitment dynamic that grabs attention.

This vision becomes shared by the organisation and drives action as Warren Bennis and Burt Nanus state that…

“A shared vision of the future also suggests measures of effectiveness for the organization and for all its parts. It helps individuals distinguish between what’s good and what’s bad for the organization, and what it’s worthwhile to achieve. And most important, it makes it possible to distribute decision making widely. People can make difficult decisions without having to appeal to higher levels in the organization each time because they know what end results are desired.”

Vision is central to leadership success, without it leaders and their teams are flying blind!

• Do you have a clear vision of your future?
• Does your team understand and share this vision?
• Are all your plans and actions aligned behind this vision?