2. 32 JOURNAL OF LEADERSHIP STUDIES • Volume 10 • Number 2 • DOI:10.1002/jls
S Y M P O S I U M
Finding individuals who have the ability to lead others
toward solving today’s complex, ambiguous, and diverse
problems is a challenge. To that end, today’s organi-
zations invest billions of dollars in developing their
leaders—a worthy investment indeed (Bersin, 2008).
Yet, nurturing the development of leaders is still a com-
plicated task.
Senior leaders need to make difficult decisions about
who to invest in and how to actually develop their
leaders. Some organizations have taken on the challenge
directly by creating talent development departments,
Chief People Officers, and human capital directors.
Still, their work is daunting as knowing which leaders
to develop, which leadership skills need to be fostered,
and understanding when that development has actu-
ally occurred still remains largely a guessing game.
Unfortunately, knowledge and practices concerning the
measurement of human capital investments, including
leadership development, has made little progress over
the past 30 years.
To address the important topic, the current Sym-
posium invited human capital and leadership
development experts to share frustrations, ideas, and
strategies for those seeking to capture the impact of
leadership development efforts within organizations.
All of our authors have spent years developing leaders
as well as trying to find ways to measure the impact of
their development efforts. Areas of particular interest
included difficult questions such as the following:
• How do we know when leadership development
has occurred?
• Who do we develop and why?
• How can we measure the impact of our leadership
development investments?
• What should leaders know?
We also sought examples of how business organiza-
tions have taken on the task and the lessons learned
from them. We hope that through the symposium,
those responsible for leadership development, and the
measurement of the outcomes thereof, will take away
concrete ideas they can move forward within their orga-
nizations.
The symposium begins with an expression of frustra-
tion from Vance, the former Chief Learning Officer at
Caterpillar (www.cat.com) and former Chief Learning
Officer of the year, where he states “Unfortunately,
leaders in L&D and HR often lack, or fail to display,
the skills we expect of good leaders, especially with
regard to running their organizations with business
discipline. In particular, L&D and HR leaders often do
not demonstrate a grasp of basic management princi-
ples,” Through the interview, Vance not only shares his
frustrations, but also presents solutions. Vance is now
the Executive Director for the Center for Talent Report-
ing, which is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the
creation and implementation of standards for human
capital measurement, reporting, and management.
Although Vance is frustrated with Learning and
Development and HR leaders, he is hopeful that
by recruiting the best “business” talent to fill L&D
functions, organizations can make a dramatic improve-
ment in understanding when leadership development
has occurred.
Bassi and McMurrer continue the discussion by
sharing how to combine several analytical tools to create
a synthesized picture of your organization’s leadership
talent. They note that many organizations already col-
lect many forms of data, but they stop short of creating
a unified product from which human capital invest-
ments can be made.
In a similar vein, Bazigos shares a McKinsey study
that examined leadership behaviors and situational
factors that, when examined in tandem, can provide
clarity around how to train leaders. Using data from
165 organizations and 365,000 global respondents,
Bazigos’s work creates a compelling case for the possi-
bility of strategically investing in leaders.
Shifting gears, Linenberger, Barbuto, and Mur-
nane each share specific leadership traits, character-
istics, and qualities that empower them to effective
lead change. Perhaps those seeking to embed strategic
human capital investment programs within their orga-
nizations (answering Vance’s challenge) would benefit
from growing in a nonanxious, self-regulating presence
(Linenberger), a servant leader perspective (Barboto),
and developing organizational citizens (Murnane). Each
of these approaches is readily available to the L&D and
HR leader, making them an attractive content area to
explore.
3. JOURNAL OF LEADERSHIP STUDIES • Volume 10 • Number 2 • DOI:10.1002/jls 33
S Y M P O S I U M
I hope that by reading and exploring the ideas pre-
sented by our experts, Symposium readers will have a
broader set of ideas from which to draw when consid-
ering our question “how do we know when leadership
development has occurred.” The authors welcome your
questions and are available to help you take these ideas
forward. And, we hope our Symposium readers will
advance this work as they test out ideas within their
organizations. How have you measured the impact of
leadership development within your organization? If
you are not doing this work, what is stopping you?
Together, we can move forward toward valid evidence
that supports who we develop, how we develop, and the
impact of our development work.
References
Bates, R. (2004). A critical analysis of evaluation practice: The
Kirkpatrick model and the principle of beneficence. Evaluation and
Program Planning, 27, 341–347.
Bersin, J. (2008). The training measurement book: Best practices,
proven methodologies, and practical approaches. San Francisco, CA:
Wiley/Pfeiffer.
Cascio, W. F., & Boudreau, J. W. (2011). Investing in people: Finan-
cial impact of human resource initiatives. Upper Saddle River, NJ:
Pearson Education.
Jennifer Moss Breen, PhD, serves as an Associate Professor
and Program Director for Creighton University’s Inter-
disciplinary Leadership EdD. Before joining Creighton
University, Jennifer served as the inaugural Director of
Bellevue University’s Human Capital Management PhD
program. Jennifer earned her PhD from the University
of Nebraska (2006) in Leadership Studies. She served
as the Past President of the Association of Leadership
Educators and the Past Chair of the Business Leadership
Member Interest Group for the International Leader-
ship Association. Jennifer teaches business leadership
and physician leadership courses at Creighton Univer-
sity and conducts research in the areas of leader resil-
ience, leader humility, knowledge sharing, leadership
development, and medical school leadership education.
Communications can be directed to jennifermossbreen@
creighton.edu.
