Helping organisations get more from leadership development.
Leadership strategy, systems design and custom programs for behaviour change and organisational impact.
Leadership development is one of the most important investments an organisation can make.
Yet many continue to wrestle with the same question:
Why doesn't leadership development consistently produce the leadership behaviours we're investing in?
I believe the answer lies in giving this investment a broader ambition.
Ironically, leadership development has never been easier to buy or harder to invest in well.
There are more providers, programs, technologies and development options than ever before.
That’s good news. It also makes investment decisions harder.
Whether you're developing your leadership strategy, creating a leadership framework or introducing a leadership program, you're making decisions about how to develop better leaders.
But what if every leadership development investment also strengthened your organisation's capacity to develop leaders?
A new ambition for leadership development.
Every organisation I work with wants to develop better leaders.
It’s the right intention. I’m just not convinced it’s the right ambition.
I think organisations don't just want better leaders.
They also want to become organisations that consistently develop better leaders.
Many organisations invest successfully in the first.
Fewer deliberately invest in the second.
That's where I think organisations unintentionally leave value on the table.
Every leadership development investment should achieve two outcomes:
Develop better leaders today and strengthen the organisation's capacity to develop leaders tomorrow.
That's how organisations get more from leadership development.
Leadership development creates its greatest value when it becomes something an organisation does, not simply something it buys.
Because the goal isn't simply to deliver leadership development. It's also about building an organisation capable of developing better leaders.
To achieve this broader ambition, my approach to designing leadership development is guided by four core beliefs:
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Learning creates the possibility of change. It doesn’t guarantee it.
Leadership programs need to provide a pathway from knowing to doing so that new leadership behaviours are applied, sustained and translated into better organisational outcomes.
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Programs matter. They just can’t carry the whole load.
Leadership behaviour is reinforced or undermined by the organisational environment: the expectations leaders are held to, the support they get, the opportunities they have to practise, the feedback they receive and the behaviours that are recognised and rewarded.
Influences like these shape an organisation’s leadership development system (LDS), with programs being only one component.
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The first level designs the participant journey that closes the gap between knowing and doing.
The second level designs the organisational conditions that allow the new leadership behaviours to take hold and endure.
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Every leadership development investment should leave something behind.
When leadership development is intentionally designed to strengthen an organisation's capacity to develop leaders, that capacity grows over time into an organisational capability.
How I can help.
These beliefs have informed two interconnected organising principles for helping organisations get more from leadership development.
The Knowing-to-Doing Pathway™ helps develop better leaders through participant journeys intentionally designed around the way behaviour change is most likely to occur.
The LDS Wheel™ helps build an organisation's capacity to develop leaders by intentionally designing conditions that strengthen its leadership development system (LDS) and make new behaviours more likely to take hold and endure.
One designs participant journeys that support behaviour change.
The other designs organisational conditions to reinforce it.
Together, they provide a design methodology that ensures every leadership development investment contributes to two outcomes:
Developing better leaders today; and
Strengthening the organisation's capacity to develop leaders tomorrow.
When those two begin reinforcing one another, something changes.
Leadership development stops feeling like a series of initiatives and becomes something the organisation does, not simply something it buys.
Three ways we can start working together:
Leadership Programs
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I work with organisations from the initial challenge through to design, build, delivery and continuous improvement - bringing together the participant journey and the organisational conditions needed for new leadership behaviours to take hold and endure.
That might mean helping individual contributors make the transition to leading others, helping people leaders shift from leading a team to leading other leaders, or preparing senior leaders to lead across an organisation. At each transition, the challenge isn't simply learning more. It's recognising which behaviours to adopt, which to adapt and which to leave behind.
Leadership Development Systems
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I can help you understand how leadership development currently works across your organisation, identify where change will create the greatest value, and design, build and implement the practical changes needed to strengthen your system.
That might mean strengthening leadership expectations, sponsorship, line manager capability or the connections between leadership development and your wider people practices.
Leadership Sounding Board
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Not every challenge requires a major consulting engagement. Sometimes you need an independent perspective to test your thinking, challenge assumptions and work out where to invest next.
The Leadership Sounding Board is a focused advisory engagement for HR, OD and L&D leaders who want to make better leadership development decisions and act on them with confidence.
Let's work out what will create the greatest impact.
Whether you already know what you need or you're still working it out, I'd love to hear what you're trying to achieve.
Together, we'll work out what will create the greatest impact for your leaders and your organisation.
The success of leadership development should be judged not only by the leaders it develops, but also by how much better the organisation becomes at developing leaders in the future.
Organisations that have got more from leadership development:
Contact Justine
If you're making important decisions about leadership development, I'd love to hear what you're trying to achieve.