Developing Others as Leaders

Week 5 Responses:

Professor Tiffany Johns

Thank you for this excellent post. It covers a variety of topics – strengths and weakness development, training, attracting leaders, identifying potential leaders, succession, and critical leadership skills. You mentioned the impact of multiple leader generations on the succession and overall success of an organization. Leadership development (or lack thereof) greatly impacts leadership succession. In their article, Conger and Fulmer (2003) discussed the impact of a leadership pipeline on leader development, which ultimately affects succession and long-term organization performance.

 

The authors mentioned three types of leaders: the emerging, developing, and strategic leader. While leadership development can occur anywhere in the organization, it most often occurs at the middle management level (Conger & Fulmer, 2003). Based off of Conger and Fulmer’s (2003) article, what are some of the unique developmental needs of the emerging, developing, and strategic leaders? How might an organization provide for these developmental needs?

 

References

Conger, J. A., & Fulmer, R. M. (2003). Developing your leadership pipeline. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2003/12/developing-your-leadership-pipeline 

Joshua

Hello! Your post about leadership succession was great to read!

You made several points about why we need to develop other leaders and how they impact leadership in the future. What would a leader due within the organization if no one showed an interest in leadership? Let's say that Tina is a manager for the "Widget Plus" company, a world-renowned manufacturer of widgets. She is retiring in one year, and everyone within the company wants to punch a time clock and not be a leader. How would Tina motivate an employee to become interested in leadership? Would she simply hire outside of the company to offset the uninterested staff?

With those questions asked, if Tina would hire outside of the company, how would she be able to see the aspects you listed as what leaders should look for in their successors? I feel integrity is the most challenging attribute to see in a future leader in a short amount of time because many people can hide their true nature for months, even years.

Great post!

Mary

Developing others is important for organizational health and performance because the more seamless the transition, the less likely it is for the organization to experience major setbacks that derail their progress and cost them dearly both financially and employee engagement and productivity. When a company declines in these ways, they lose its competitive advantage (McClements, 2017).

Leadership development must evolve as the organization evolves. This requires a great deal of proactive planning of the direction the organization is taking and seeking those in the ranks with the skill sets to fill the leadership roles when the organization achieves that model. Keeping the future leaders’ development tied to the organization’s direction allows the leadership change with no gaps in the leadership ranks along the way. Anticipation of the markets that the organization serves and what their future need will be and designing a plan to alter the course of the organization to accommodate these changing needs in the market allows the succession planning to identify the characteristics they will need in their future leaders and tap the appropriate people for those roles. This constant evolution compounds generation after generation and keeps the organization’s leadership team in a strong position to adhere to changing demands of their clients and cultivate programs to maximize the necessary leadership characteristics for these demands for the future at the same time. By defining a program to capitalize on the traits needed for a strong future leadership team, the organization is better positioned to attract, retain, and fill corporate leadership roles (Hansen, 2013).

 

 Latanya

Developing others is vital for organizational health and performance because the company needs to bridge the gap between the leadership talent and what the company needs to do to maintain a successful establishment. (McClements, 2017) A company looks for a person who will be able to live by its mission and culture. I know in education, and I am sure this is correct for other careers too. Still, in teaching, the test assessments play an essential factor in the health of a school's performance and organizational health. Through different generational leaders, the company focuses on style and the techniques that fit the organization they want to grow. (Hansen, 2013 ) Also, leaders who support their company. This is anyone from the employees to the community members. I believe that leaders need to remember that even though you are mentoring, leaders take over one day. They may not precisely follow your blueprint. Everybody comes up with new and creative ideas that may make a company run better, produce more significant numbers, and have a more positive environment. Give them that chance to prove to be the leader you saw in them in the first place.

McClements, L. (2017) How to build the pipeline for executive succession.

 

Hansen, J. (2013) Seven steps for effective leadership development

References

Hansen, J. (2013, December). Seven steps for effective leadership development. Human Resources Magazine, 18(5), 14–17.

McClements, L. (2017, November). How to build the pipeline for executive succession. Governance Directions, 69(10), 616–618.