Factors for Building a Leadership Development Culture
Stop focusing on building leaders. I bet you never thought you would hear that from me. But it’s true…if we focus only on building leaders instead of building a leadership development culture our leadership development efforts won’t last. When an organization comes to a realization they have a leadership problem and make a determination that they need to “develop leaders’ they will do just that. They will turn their attention to developing leaders for a season but once they start getting some movement they will turn their focus to something else and within a short period of time they will have leadership problems again. Instead of focusing on building leaders I would suggest you put your focus on building a leadership development culture. How do you do that? Here are 10 factors to consider as you seek to build a leadership development culture.
- Factor 1 – The senior leadership are involved in developing leaders. If they don’t model it, it won’t stick in your culture
- Factor 2 – Make leadership development an expectation for every leader. Actually add it to every leaders job description
- Factor 3- Design a Leadership Development strategy that you teach on a consistent basis
- Factor 4 – Talk about it often (in fact talk about it too much)
- Factor 5 - Use a Common Language. Develop terms and phrases related to leadership development that will stick in your culture
- Factor 6 – Design systems that are easy to understand and easy to use
- Factor 7 – Provide accountability by measuring it regularly
- Factor 8 – Celebrate it consistently
- Factor 9 – Put someone in charge to champion it
- Factor 10 – Be Patient. Building a leadership development culture takes (sorry) years
What steps can you take over the next 30 days to start building a leadership development culture?
