Strategy Activation
Planning a leadership
development journey.
About this series.
In these four articles, we ask:
what are the keys to developing
agile leaders who can pivot
with the needs of the business
strategy?
Part 1. Develop your leaders in
context. Leadership development
can be used to put the best minds in
a company to work on real, current
business problems.
Becoming an effective leader, however, requires tremendous effort
and time (Ericsson, Krampe, and Clemens 1993), perhaps stretching
over the course of an entire career. Proven leadership talent is often
scarce and additionally, leaders are facing more complex challenges
earlier in their careers (Bersin 2012). Because of these issues, it is in
every organization’s best interest to develop leaders at all levels.
Each leader’s effectiveness depends
on a number of factors, including
personality traits, personal experience
and workplace skills. Effective
development addresses all of these.
Most agree that leadership development should be aligned with
business strategy and that it should ensure a robust pipeline of
ready leaders. The importance of this alignment and readiness is
highlighted by the ongoing quest for effective methodologies.
We have found that viewing leadership development as a journey—
one that integrates opportunities to gain insight, experiences,
visibility and tackle challenges—creates paths that connect
individual growth to organizational needs.
Part 3. Realize that development
is a journey. Meaningful change
The role of human resource development.
Part 2. Who leaders need to
be and what they need to do.
happens over time, but leaders can
embrace new behaviors when they’ve
been given time to understand them.
Part 4. The power of service and
purpose. Serving a greater good is a
powerful motivator for a leader to be
his or her best self.
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Effective leaders are the “difference that makes a difference”
for organizations. The quality of leadership is one of the most
important predictors of an organization’s future success
(Peterson, Walumbwa, Byron and Myrowitz 2009).
Leadership development practitioners must find ways to balance
an individual leader’s desire for growth and engagement with the
organization’s need to drive business strategy and results. The most
mature leadership development functions build capacity at the
individual and organizational level by doing four things:
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Improve skills and competence. Korn Ferry recognizes
four leadership skill categories: thought, self, people, and
results. Thought leadership is about anticipating and solving
problems. People leadership skills are those needed to develop
other employees. Self leadership skills revolve around selfmanagement. Results leadership skills are focused on the
abilities of planning and execution.
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Foster individual engagement. Whether individuals are in a managerial role now or not, they
choose to lead—or not. The choice to lead comes from a deep sense of connection to the
people and to the organization. Leaders are made when they understand their own unique
values and purposes. With coaching and support, individuals can decide how leadership can
allow them to act on their values.
Create a path for succession. Leadership development must provide opportunities for leaders
to stretch and grow into bigger jobs, and prevent the talent bottleneck for business growth.
Development programs ensure there are enough leaders ready to step up and take on a
broader range of responsibilities when needed.
Support networking and organizational engagement. Leadership development can be used
to create strong and lasting social bonds around a shared vision and purpose. This can help
leaders talk about strategy and develop leadership qualities in others.
Figure 1
Leadership development that serves individuals and organizations.
Growth
Individual
Organization
Engagement
Improve skills and competence.
Foster individual engagement.
Help individual leaders gain the skills,
knowledge and abilities they need.
Foster commitment so that
leaders choose to lead.
Create a path for succession.
Support networking and
organizational engagement.
Identify and develop leaders so
that the organization has the right
leaders when they’re needed.
Improve the ability of leaders
to activate the strategy.
In order to serve all four of these aims through leadership development, programs must be
integrated development journeys. These journeys go beyond training. Development and training
have linked but different aims. Training has been likened to “filling up a glass;” in that it serves to
add to a person’s knowledge base and information reserve. Development, on the other hand, not
only fills up the glass but makes the glass larger and increases its capacity.
The goal of strategic leadership development is to help individuals, groups and organizations
improve their ability to work together productively (Day and Harrison 2011). Often this requires
challenging methods of the past. Rabinowitz, et al. (2013) asks us to “picture a yearlong
developmental journey, done in a cohort, where participants grapple with real business issues
and learn about leadership as they address relevant and high-value problems in the context of
their own organization.” Creating these learning journeys requires a new approach to the design
process, which uses the current context of the organization as a starting point.
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Designing effective leadership journeys.
Figure 2
Strategic Leadership Journey Design
Process.
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Leadership development should activate its
organization’s strategy. In fact, the fundamental
question of strategic leadership development is
this: in what areas does an organization need talent
that is better or more plentiful than its competitors?
(Boudreau et al. 2002.)
For an example of strategy activation, take a
recent case set in a health care delivery organization.
The organization partnered with Korn Ferry to
develop its leaders at a time of tremendous change.
Recent mergers, massive growth in demand, and a
new CEO with a new vision highlighted a real need
for leadership within the organization.
Together, we followed the Strategic Leadership
Journey Design Process to create an integrated
development strategy.
1.Recognize shift. In this step, the fundamental changes in the strategic roadmap were identified
as “shifts” and these shifts highlighted the need for change. The shifts for the health care system
were significant and pointed out challenging leadership gaps. Leaders of the future would need
to be able to look beyond traditional settings for health care delivery and proactively partner with
the communities they served. Administrative and clinical leaders would need to partner ever more
closely to deliver on the organization’s mission.
2.Clarify demand. Once the shift and nature of change was identified, the next step was to clearly
define the new competencies demanded of leaders. In this analysis the talent gaps became
apparent. There was a need for more strategic agility, cultural competence, communication,
innovation, teamwork and systems thinking.
3.Establish the core. For all that would change, it was important to identify that which would stay
the same, including core leadership characteristics such as vitality, authenticity, learning agility,
and self-awareness. In the case of this health care organization, the core characteristics also
included ethics and cultural competence.
4. Craft design architecture. Crafting a design architecture meant addressing the learning objectives
and a high-level map of accessible development experiences. One useful tool for any organization
in creating a design architecture is the Korn Ferry Development Pipeline™. Best-practice learning
journeys include all five components of the pipeline.
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Insight: How do people gain an awareness of what is missing or needs improvement? Insights
are typically gained through feedback and assessment (often in the form of 360° feedback).
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Motivation: Why should people be motivated to invest the time and effort it takes to develop as
leaders? Executives set the stage for success through role modeling. They also provide resources,
act as coaches and support improvement.
Skills: How will people absorb new skills? Based on Korn Ferry’s research, the most valuable
development experiences (in decreasing order) are: rotational or stretch assignments, action
learning, mentoring, relationships, 360° assessments, exposure to more senior leaders and
formal classroom training.
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Real-world practice: How will people practice? Job experience and on-the-job challenges
play a key role in developing leadership capabilities. Lessons learned early in one’s career
have tremendous impact (McCall, Lombard, and Morrison 1988).
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Accountability: How will people be encouraged to internalize what they’ve learned and improve
performance? They must receive feedback. They also need to be held accountable for how they
apply what they’ve learned.
5.Build program. With the learning journey architecture in hand, the next step was to create or select
the development experiences most aligned with the leader and the leader’s context. In this case,
participants at all levels were “players/coaches,” responsible for both patient and organizational
outcomes. This meant that time for out of role development was short and had to be reserved for
the highest impact experiences. As a result, virtual learning and action-learning projects, as well as
workplace-based and just-in-time learning were combined with site visits and in-person, traditional,
instructor-led development. All elements were tied together by the core leadership principles and
aimed at critical competencies and experiences.
6.Implement development. To launch the experience, insight was gathered with assessments,
feedback and coaching. The support of senior leaders instilled motivation in participants. New skills,
introduced in development workshops and synchronous web meetings, and real-world practice
were acquired through learning assignments. Accountability was built through peer feedback and
manager involvement.
7.Feedback loop. Strategic leadership development journeys like the one described here impact the
leader and the organization. At the health care system, the impact of the leadership development
journey was assessed using multiple methods. These included:
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Post-session evaluations to gauge participant response and suggestions.
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Reviews of development planning (participants document their action plans).
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Conducting a formal 360° post-program Time2Change® survey.
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Comparing engagement surveys.
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Measuring actual retention rates for pivotal positions.
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Performance ratings of managers by employees.
The program management team reviewed evaluation data quarterly. This made it possible to see further
opportunities for program alignment to the business strategy and needs of leaders.
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Conclusion
This paper proposes a framework for the design of strategic leadership development journeys. We
invite our fellow leadership development practitioners to evaluate their performance against it. Are you
fostering leader growth at the individual and organizational levels? Who are your visible role models at
the senior level? Are your learning strategies aligned with your business strategies? Do your learning
strategies take advantage of the “tincture of time,” or are they transactional events?
Leadership is a valuable asset that every organization needs. However, it is a borrowed asset that
the organization cannot own. It must be continuously acquired, developed, nurtured, engaged, and
rewarded. The benefit of approaching leadership development as an ongoing journey is the progressive
arrival of mature, committed leaders who are prepared to activate the business strategy.
References
Bersin. 2012. Talentwatch. New York: Bersin and Associates.
Boudreau, John W., Peter M. Ramstad, and Peter J. Dowling. 2002. Global talentship toward a decision science
connecting talent to global strategic success. Ithaca, N.Y.: Center for Advanced Human Resource Studies,
Cornell University.
Day, David and Michelle. Harrison. 2006. “Leadership Development.” The Encyclopedia of Career Development.
New York: Sage Publications.
DeRue, S. 2011. “Adaptive leadership theory: Leading and following as a complex adaptive process.” Research in
Organizational Behavior, 125-150.
Ericsson, K. Anders, Ralf Th Krampe, and Clemens Tesch-Römer. 1993. “The Role of Deliberate Practice in the
Acquisition of Expert Performance.” Psychological Review. 100 (3): 363-406.
Peterson, Suzanne, Fred Walumbwa, Kristin Byron, and Jason Myrowitz. 2009. “CEO Positive
Psychological Traits, Transformational Leadership, and Firm Performance in High-Technology
Start-up and Established Firms.” Journal of Management. 35 (2): 348-368.
Rabinowitz, Noah, C. McCarthy, Kathy Woods, J. Feldman, J. Gillespie, and Jonathan Feil, J. 2013.
Talent Management Best Practice Series: Leadership Development. Evelyn Orr (Ed.) Los Angeles:
The Korn Ferry Institute.
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Contributors
Claudia Hill
Global Lead for High-Potential Leadership Development,
Korn Ferry Leadership and Talent Consulting
+1 612 373 3493
[email protected]
Allen Moore
Senior Partner and Executive Coaching Solution Lead,
Korn Ferry Leadership and Talent Consulting
+1 650 787 3032
[email protected]
About Korn Ferry
At Korn Ferry, we design, build, attract and ignite talent. Since our inception, clients have trusted
us to help recruit world-class leadership. Today, we are a single source for leadership and talent
consulting services to empower businesses and leaders to reach their goals. Our solutions
range from executive recruitment and leadership development programs, to enterprise learning,
succession planning and recruitment process outsourcing (RPO).
About The Korn Ferry Institute
The Korn Ferry Institute, our research and analytics arm, was established to share intelligence and
expert points of view on talent and leadership. Through studies, books and a quarterly magazine,
Briefings, we aim to increase understanding of how strategic talent decisions contribute to
competitive advantage, growth and success.
Visit www.kornferry.com for more information on Korn Ferry,
and www.kornferryinstitute.com for articles, research and insights.
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