Purposeful Talent Development: Developing leaders who lead differently

​​​​​​​Whether this means diversity in leadership or leading differently along with the times, today is a great day to consider the state of leadership learning in your organization.

Just like an optical illusion, this statement, developing leaders who lead differently, can be viewed in two ways.

One is through a diversity and inclusion lens, seeing leaders as individuals that bring different skills and experience to a role. Marcus Buckingham has shared this thought: “If you look at leaders, each one will be leading in a slightly, but importantly different way.” Therefore, leadership development opportunities should account for these individual strengths and areas of opportunity, giving way to personalized development. Leadership development through this lens might include evaluating an individual’s capabilities through an assessment aligned to a competency model or leader success profile and using it to create an individual development plan.

The other way to view that statement is through the lens of innovation, recognizing that leaders today cannot operate in the same way they did 10—or even two—years ago. Leadership development cannot be what it was and should shift, just as our teams, communications and operations have evolved. Developing leaders with this focus could include identifying and communicating the critical upcoming capabilities for leaders within your organization and offering resources and opportunities to develop these capabilities.

 

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