In this recessionary period, layoffs and other drastic measures are being taken by companies to insure their future survival. However, leadership development programs are seen as vital for corporate survival today and in the future.
While it may be true that organizations are cutting funding for "training programs," that is not the case when it comes to grooming emerging leaders. According to the 2008 Bersin & Associates Leadership Development Survey, a study of 400 organizations conducted last October by the Oakland, CA-based talent management research firm, 40% of those polled, said their spending on leadership development has remained the same, while about 36% of the organizations said their budgets were slated to increase this year.
Training dollars overall may be decreasing while companies may be shifting their priorities to leadership. Bill Pelster, a principal at the Seattle office of Deloitte Consulting, says senior executives are concentrating on what their organizations will look like 12 to 18 months from now, so the cash for development is still flowing for key executives. "They know that this (recession) will end and, at some point, the need to expand or grab talent and market share is going to be there."
Companies are pickier about where to invest--reducing classroom training but increasing other development vehicles, such as virtual training, coaching or blended learning. These companies are expanding newer approaches such as one-on-one coaching, self-diagnostics and management teambuilding workshops to further their leadership development programs.
Today companies want a stronger marriage between leadership development and everyday work experience and to scale access to leadership development to promotable line managers. "The more customized an experience can be to an individual, and the closer it is to the work that [he or she does] every day, the more effective it is," says Kathy Kavanagh, PricewaterhouseCoopers' managing director for learning and education.
Peter Cappelli, director of the Wharton School's Center for Human Resources at the University of Pennsylvania sees a silver lining in a bad economy---in that "stretch assignments" are an effective and practical method of leadership development and are especially relevant and effective now. "Seize the opportunity of having to do more with fewer people," he says. "You've laid off somebody at the director level, then a couple of the senior managers start splitting up some of those tasks, and taking on some of them as stretch assignments." As long as someone is there to "hold their hands a little bit," Cappelli says, they learn by doing, and the organization is helping to address potential succession gaps.
In many cases, outside executive coaches are the "hand holders" of the emerging leaders assigned to these stretch assignments.
Source: Human Resource Executive, June 2, 2009