How To Create a Leadership Development Strategy (Plus 13 Strategies)
A strong leadership development strategy drives growth, innovation, and resilience, yet only 54% of companies have made it mandatory.
An effective leadership development strategy provides a strong foundation for your organization’s next generation of leaders and, by extension, the business’s success. Not having one can cause innovation to stagnate and teams to lose their motivation.
This article explains what a leadership development strategy is, the 13 different strategy types, and how you can create one to meet your organization’s needs.
Contents
What is a leadership development strategy?
Leadership development strategy: Key characteristics
13 types of leadership development strategies
How to create a strong leadership development strategy
3 real-life examples of leadership development strategies
What is a leadership development strategy?
A leadership development strategy is a plan that aims to help an organization’s future leaders increase their capacity to effectively guide, inspire, and influence others in the company.
Leadership development focuses on cultivating key leadership competencies, such as strategic thinking, decision-making, emotional intelligence, and communication. It highlights aspects such as self-awareness, personal growth, and the ability to empower and motivate others.
An effective leadership development plan provides a structured approach to empowering potential leaders to confidently take on their future roles, navigate a constantly changing business landscape, and drive organizational success.
Leadership development strategy: Key characteristics
There are some elements every leadership development strategy framework should include, such as:
- Alignment with business goals: Effective leadership development must support long-term business objectives by helping potential leaders align their professional growth with company goals.
- Personalization: These programs should also be tailored to individual leadership styles and career paths as much as possible to encourage, facilitate, and support diverse perspectives among leaders.
- Practical experience: 75% of leadership development professionals estimate that under 50% of what they train in is actually applied on the job. Effective leadership development training should focus on the practical application of knowledge and skills.
- Continuous learning: Concepts that leadership adopts significantly influence a company’s culture. Leaders modeling continuous learning will also help build a culture of continuous learning throughout the rest of the organization.
- Measurement and assessment: A leadership development strategy should have clear, quantifiable goals aligned with organizational objectives. You can use HR smart goals to track the progress of your leadership development efforts and their return on investment (ROI).
13 types of leadership development strategies
There are various types of strategies you can use as part of your leadership development plan. You can combine a few strategies to create a well-rounded development curriculum. Examples include:
1. Mentorship programs
Mentoring is usually a long-term, relationship-based process between two people. In this process, a more experienced employee (the mentor) provides their mentee with support, guidance, and advice. Mentoring focuses on career development and personal growth and provides an excellent opportunity to transfer knowledge and skills.
2. Coaching
Coaching is a more structured, goal-oriented process focused on achieving specific results within a predetermined period of time. Leadership coaching is a collaborative process designed to help potential leaders improve their leadership skills, overcome challenges, and reach other specific outcomes.
3. Formal training programs
A formal training program consists of workshops or structured training sessions to help enhance specific leadership competencies and skills. It can include online courses, in-person classes, certificate programs, and more. These programs suit companies that prioritize long-term succession planning or leadership development.
4. On-the-job training
This involves leaders undergoing coaching or a formal training program while performing their existing leadership duties. Often, new leaders find themselves managing teams of people without completing (or even receiving) leadership training. On-the-job training helps them develop their leadership competencies while performing their duties.
5. Job rotation
Job rotation is a practice where employees (including potential leaders) move between different roles or departments for a certain period to develop diverse skills to prepare for future leadership. Job rotation also allows employees to better understand different business operations as part of their preparation for leadership positions.
6. Cross-functional projects
These projects help potential leaders better understand inter-department relationships and individual roles. It also helps them develop and enhance leadership skills, such as adaptability and collaboration. Additionally, they can build stronger connections with key stakeholders across different departments and teams.
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7. Action training
This strategy involves leaders collaborating to solve real business challenges through practical experience and group discussion. This allows participants to develop skills that are directly applicable to their work. Action training aims to enhance problem-solving abilities, and critical thinking skills while also delivering tangible business results.
8. Leadership workshops
A leadership workshop is a structured session that focuses on developing and enhancing the leadership skills of its participants. Leadership workshop sessions typically involve exercises that teach key leadership concepts, facilitate interactive activities, and drive discussions.
9. Succession planning
Succession planning involves identifying potential leaders to ensure the continuity of critical roles and business operations in an organization. An effective succession plan must provide a structured approach to preparing the next generation of leaders to move the company forward.
10. 360 degree feedback
If you want to identify leadership skills gaps and promote self-awareness among your company’s leaders, 360 degree feedback can be highly useful. It gathers input about a leader’s performance from different sources, including peers, direct reports, and supervisors, offering a well-rounded picture of their capabilities and potential.
11. Shadowing senior leaders
Job shadowing is a form of on-the-job training where, in the context of leadership development, a future or potential leader learns from an experienced leader by observing them as they go about their day-to-day work duties and responsibilities. This allows them to ask important questions and model beneficial leadership behaviors.
12. Soft skills training
Soft skills such as communication, emotional intelligence, problem-solving, and decision-making are all key leadership competencies. A leadership development plan should prioritize building and developing interpersonal skills in order to be successful at preparing future leaders for their roles.
13. Networking opportunities
Building and maintaining connections with peers across different industries and levels of experience gives leaders an excellent opportunity to enhance their ability to lead effectively. Networking is also a great way to identify potential talent and stay current on the latest industry trends.
How to create a strong leadership development strategy
The following seven steps below provide a simple guide for you to start creating a strong leadership development strategy.
Step 1: Identify business objectives
Before anything else, you must have a thorough understanding of your organization’s business goals. This will help determine the kinds of behaviors, capabilities, traits, and skills you must focus on in your leadership development strategy framework.
Step 2: Identify key leadership styles and competencies
Depending on your company’s culture and business needs, it may require one or more leadership styles. It’s crucial to identify key competencies for the company’s success, as they’ll form the foundation of your leadership development plan.
Step 3: Assess current leadership capabilities
To understand what your leadership development strategy needs, you must assess your current and future leaders against the key leadership styles and competencies you’ve established. One tool you can use for this is the Training Needs Analysis (TNA).
Step 4: Select the right leadership development methods
The results of the assessment mentioned in the previous step will show you the skills gaps among your company’s future leaders. You can then use this to determine the most suitable leadership development methods to help close these gaps.
Step 5: Design your leadership development plan
Your development plan should combine your selected learning methods to create an engaging learning environment. For instance, the strategy could feature a combination of formal training, action training, job shadowing, leadership mentoring, job rotation, and soft skills training.
Step 6: Encourage continuous feedback and assessment
360 degree feedback is an excellent tool to monitor people’s progress during their leadership development training, and their readiness for leadership after completion. Examples include the OPM Leadership 360™ and the RightPath 360 assessment.
Step 7: Measure, adapt, and improve
For your leadership development strategy to succeed, you need to collect and analyze data and then measure it against the goals you’ve set. KPIs for each goal will help you measure progress, so you know what to keep doing and how to improve your strategy.
3 real-life examples of leadership development strategies
Below are three real-life company examples of leadership development strategies you can use to inspire your own approach:
Example 1: General Electric
General Electric (GE) has multiple leadership development programs, one of which is the two-year Operations Management Leadership Program. Its participants rotate three times across the business to gain experience within the supply chain, and take on assignments to help build a foundation in supply chain and leadership.
Example 2: Intuit
One of Intuit’s leadership development programs involves cohorts of five to seven VPs undergoing two months of training before deciding how they’d teach the company’s directors about leadership from their own perspectives. The directors also undergo the same program and share their learnings with their managers to create a cycle of knowledge through teaching.
Example 3: IBM
Extreme Blue is IBM’s three-month leadership program for future tech and business leaders. It welcomes talented individuals with established leadership skills and technical abilities. The program aims to provide participants with an experience that emphasizes innovation, growth, and collaboration.
To sum up
An effective leadership development strategy is vital for a company’s and its people’s success. It is key in empowering (junior) leaders to fulfill their roles with confidence, and successfully navigate others in the organization through a constantly changing business environment.
Companies that prioritize and continuously refine their leadership development strategies are better positioned to drive innovation, improve employee engagement, and sustain long-term business growth.
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