In general terms, leadership is a social interaction that involves influencing others. The development of business leaders is fundamental to an organization’s long-term success, yet it is often overlooked or business leadership development is undertaken in a haphazard fashion in which leaders are expected to emerge from the employee pool without any interaction or support from the organization.
Once an organization has made a commitment to leadership development there are many techniques that can be used to achieve the goal; while a given method may be more or less applicable depending on the size of an organization (or its particular circumstances) some of the techniques are described below.
Leadership Assessment Tools
There are a variety of personality assessments available that are used to identify potential candidates for leadership positions and to analyze the effectiveness of different leadership styles. These can be useful for identifying candidates for additional leadership development.
Coaching
Coaching is often combined with assessment tools to help individuals understand the results of their assessment and how to apply it practically in different work scenarios. The Individual Coaching for Effectiveness (ICE) system consists of three elements: diagnosis, coaching and review that is used to teach specific behaviours and to assess their uptake.
Mentoring
Similar to coaching, mentoring involves an established leader helping and guiding a potential future leader in their professional development and offering advice based on their experience. While this is typically undertaken informally, there can also be programs established to promote this type of business leadership development.
Leader to Leader Development
Often new executives are paired with existing leaders in an organization to help them adjust to their new role and understand a company’s mission and culture. This type of mentoring provides benefits such as enabling corporate knowledge transfer, building confidence and promoting open collaboration, among others.
Fostering Emotional Intelligence
Emotional intelligence refers to the ability of a person to be sensitive to and understand the emotions of others while at the same time managing their own impulses and emotions in a professional environment. Leaders are expected to be ‘above the fray’ and to display understanding when directing others. Addressing this approach to development in a group setting can be particularly effective, especially when other workers are invited to provide feedback on what they regard as good leadership. Some studies have shown that among top executives and business leaders over 90% have a high level of emotional intelligence.