To expand your leadership candidate pool, leverage employee networks to dig deeper into your workforce.
BY JOSEPH SANTANA
V
arious studies report that CEOs are by and large concerned about the development of the next generation of leaders. Not surprisingly, corporate training budgets, especially those allocated to leadership development, have steadily grown. According to Training Industry’s “The State of the Leadership Training Market,” in 2018 alone organizations around the world spent about $3.4 billion on leadership development solutions. Most futurists predict this number will continue to increase. Yet, despite this investment, a leadership candidate shortage seems to persist. A 2014-2015 “Global Leadership Forecast” by The Conference Board and DDI revealed that 85 percent of executives are not confident in their leadership pipelines. One major constraint to the leadership candidate pool appears to be the severely limited approach for identifying future leaders. In essence, organizations consider a few star performers with high visibility in typically preferred roles. Using what on the surface appears to be a rigorous psychometrics process, but which often is little more than an educated guess, they then label these individuals “high potentials.” The organizations then make large investments in these candidates and wait for results.
Chief Learning Officer • March 2020 • ChiefLearningOfficer.com 37
