Improving Leadership Development

It's doable, but it's not easy.

Never been a big fan of management development or leadership development or whatever you want to call it. It’s Turd City at a lot of places. I’ve made an argument before — via people smarter than me — that the whole A-Player discussion is morally bankrupt, and there’s a new article here that makes a similar point:

Senior leaders often receive most of their leadership training during the final chapters of their careers, when they have the most experience. Organizations also go to great lengths to conduct annual performance and talent reviews to identify high-performers and high-potentials (HiPos) and offer them ample development. In both scenarios, the individuals who receive the most development are also the ones who arguably need it the least. We call this the leadership development paradox.

Indeed. ’Tis truly a paradox. I was in grad school, which I still have no idea why I attended, in 2012 and 2013. We did a project with Microsoft where they were so, so, so, so, so excited to learn about their Hi-Pos and then throw a ton of resources at those people. But wait.