Leadership Development

Leadership competencies will still matter - there is a move away from viewing leadership and leadership development solely in terms of leader attributes, skills, and traits and instead seeing development as focusing on the whole person, the leader's ability to communicate, and their relationships and interactions as both leaders and collaborators with other staff. Leadership competencies will remain a core dimension of development, but these must correspond with, and be specific to, the distinct business challenges and goals of the leaders organisation, and will need to fit its particular strategies and business models.

Gloablisation/internationalisation of leadership concepts, constructs and development methods - future leaders must be conversant with doing business internationally and be able to plan strategies based on a global perspective. Development will increasingly include components relating to international markets, world economic trends, practices in specific regions (e.g. the Asia/Pacific rim), and working with trade, regulatory, political and media groups from other parts of the world.

The role of technology - leaders will be required to become more knowledgeable and competent with technological tools and be able to lead geographically disperse units and teams.

Increasing interest in the integrity and character of leaders - the interrelationships between leadership, character and values will become more central to how leaders work. Issues such as integrity, moral character, ethical business practices, trustworthiness, humility, concern for the greater good, and fairness will increasingly be included in leadership development practices. In fact Bennis states "I have never seen anyone derailed from top leadership because of a lack of business literacy or conceptual skills - it is always because of lapses in judgment and questions of character" which "tend to be ignored by those responsible for educating others and are arguably difficult, or even impossible, to 'teach'".

Pressure to demonstrate return on investment (ROI) - development can be expensive and time consuming and increasing pressure to quantify ROI is occurring and becoming a priority. Ways to plan, implement, and evaluate leadership development initiatives will become an increasing focus and need to be linked back to relevant organisational outcomes.

New ways of thinking about the nature of leadership and leadership development - future trends indicate that leadership will be seen less as a process whereby a single person receives development input, and more as the "collective capacity of all members of an organisation to accomplish such critical tasks as setting direction, creating alignment, and gaining commitment". Leadership will also become more understood as a collaborative, social and relational role where partnerships, collaboration and customer/supplier factors will receive increased attention in development initiatives.

_________________________________________________________

You are reading a Management Brief Report in html-format. Become a member of the BPIR to receive a new report in PDF-format every month (see examples: Benchmarking & Business Excellence). PDF-format can be saved on your hard drive, emailed to work colleagues, and are much easier to read and print out!.. For BPIR updates and best practices sign up to our FREE newsletter.

< Prev		Next >