Get more from leadership development.
I help organisations get more from leadership development.
Leadership development is one of the most important investments an organisation can make.
That investment needs a new ambition.
Ironically, leadership development has never been easier to buy or harder to invest in well.
There are more programs, providers, 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, at the same time, you could make decisions about how to become an organisation that gets better at developing leaders?
I believe leadership development needs a broader ambition.
Not simply developing better leaders but building organisations that consistently develop better leaders.
A new ambition for leadership development.
Every organisation I work with wants to develop better leaders.
It’s the right intention. I’m not convinced it’s the right ambition.
Because I believe that organisations don't just want better leaders.
They 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.
Leadership development creates the greatest return when every investment achieves two things:
It develops better leaders today.
It strengthens the organisation's capacity to develop leaders tomorrow.
That’s how organisations get more from leadership development.
Capability isn't purchased. It's built.
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 to build an organisation that's capable of developing leaders.
The first develops individual capability. The second strengthens the organisation’s capacity to develop leaders.
Over time, that growing capacity becomes organisational capability.
You need both to get more from leadership development.
Four beliefs that guide my work
Everything I do is guided by four beliefs about how leadership development should be designed.
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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.
Together, these form an organisation's Leadership Development System (LDS).
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Leadership programs should be designed to develop individual capability while strengthening the organisation's capacity to develop leaders.
That means designing not only for participant behaviour change, but also for the organisational conditions that make those new behaviours more likely 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.
I believe the success of leadership development should be judged not only by the leaders it develops, but by how much better the organisation becomes at developing leaders in the future.
How I help.
These beliefs have shaped two interconnected organising principles for designing leadership development in a way that helps organisations to get more from it.
The Knowing-to-Doing Pathway™ helps develop better leaders through participant journeys designed around the way behaviour change is most likely to occur.
The Leadership Development System (LDS) Wheel™ helps strengthen an organisation's capacity to develop leaders by creating the organisational conditions that make new leadership behaviours more likely to take hold and endure.
One designs for behaviour change.
The other designs the conditions that allow that behaviour change to last.
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.
Where would you like to start?
Whether we're strengthening your leadership development system, designing a leadership program or thinking through your next investment, the goal remains the same.
Helping organisations get more from leadership development.
Develop leaders by closing the knowing-doing gap:
Strengthen your organisation's capacity to develop leaders:
Organisations that have got more from leadership development:
Let’s work out what will create the greatest impact.
If you're making important decisions about leadership development, I'd love to hear what you're trying to achieve.