This document discusses leadership development in companies and provides recommendations for effective leadership programs. It notes that companies spend over $1 billion per year on leadership development but many programs are ineffective. To be successful, leadership programs should have clear objectives, senior leadership support, experiential learning approaches, modular formats with time for reflection, socialization activities, and proper outcome measurements. The goal is to develop both technical and behavioral skills in a commercially relevant way to improve companies' leadership pipelines.

1. Leadership development – wise
investment or wasteful fashion?
Mike Sarwar
Senior Training consultant
Leadership and Professional Development
June 2015

2. 2
Did you know…
• UK companies spend $1.1billion on leadership development every year. In
the US it is estimated at being almost $14 billion.
• 500 executives were asked to rank their top three human-capital priorities.
Leadership development was included as both a current and a future
priority and almost two-thirds of the respondents identified it as their
number-one concern.
• Only 7% of senior managers polled by a UK business school think that
their companies develop global leaders effectively.
• 30% of US companies admit that they have failed to exploit their
international business opportunities fully because they lack enough leaders
with the right capabilities.

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Leadership and decision making
Leadership is about making successful decisions which entails
drawing three key pieces together:
•Our world view – how we see the world, ourselves, our colleagues, our
conscious and unconscious bias, our technical expertise
•Situations which we find ourselves in – the team, the commercial
environment, the organisational landscape, the market
•Money – everything is about money except money, and it changes
everything: relationships, actions and behaviours

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What is leadership?

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Leadership development – wise investment or
wasteful fashion?
Leadership DNA has two
key components –
technical competence and
behavioural confidence.
One without the other will
cause imbalance and a loss
of commercial
effectiveness.
A commercial learning
and development model
should seek to address
both strands with
distinct and appropriate
but interconnected
interventions.

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Leadership development – wise investment or
wasteful fashion?
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Enterprise Manager
Group Manager
Business Manager
Functional Manager
Manager of Managers
Manager of Others
Manager of Self
F
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Enterprise Manager
Group Manager
Business Manager
Functional Manager
Manager of Managers
Manager of Others
Manager of Self
F
A T
L F
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LF
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A commercial imperative for every organisation is to grow their human asset at every
level, identifying talents, assessing their competence, planning their development, and
measuring results.
In order to create and maintain a healthy leadership pipeline, it is important to focus on
the right balance of job components and development needs relevant to each stage.

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Leadership development – wise investment or
wasteful fashion?
Clearly define all programme objectives – what is the
programme for?
•What do you want your participants to do better after the programme than
they are doing now?
•How will the improvement be manifested?
•How can the improvement be measured?

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Leadership development – wise investment or
wasteful fashion?
Senior advocacy
Experience has taught us that there is a direct correlation between the
success of any development programme and the “quantity” and quality, of the
involvement and support provided by the organisation such as genuine, overt
active advocacy in the workplace by the senior leadership team and other
senior stakeholders.
•CEO public programme support statement - participant invites
•CEO and other senior management programme participation – dinners, Q&A
sessions, presentations
•Ad hoc participant engagement intra module by SMT
•Post programme wash up by CEO

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Leadership development – wise investment or
wasteful fashion?
Commercially authentic
Tailored Real Relevant

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Leadership development – wise investment or
wasteful fashion?
Experiential delivery
Build trust Never assess
Debate &
constructive
conflict
Organisationally
relevant case
studies
Practical
exercises –
cerebral & active

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Leadership development – wise investment or
wasteful fashion?
Duration and modular in format
Effective leadership
requires
behavioural change
Change takes time
Without a significant
degree of
discomfort, chances
are behaviour won’t
change
Immersion,
reflection and
reinforcement is key
to sustainable
outcomes

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Leadership development – wise investment or
wasteful fashion?
Programme socialisation

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Leadership development – wise investment or
wasteful fashion?
Properly and Appropriately Measured
Beware of
gaming
Practical and
relevant
Avoid survey
fatigue

19. Leadership development – wise investment or
wasteful fashion?
•Clearly define all programme objectives
•Senior advocacy
•Commercially authentic
•Experiential delivery
•Duration and modular in format
•Programme Socialisation
•Properly and appropriately measured

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BUT… Remember!
• UK companies spend $1.1billion on leadership development every year. In
the US it is estimated at being almost $14 billion.
• 500 executives were asked to rank their top three human-capital priorities.
Leadership development was included as both a current and a future
priority and almost two-thirds of the respondents identified it as their
number-one concern.
• Only 7% of senior managers polled by a UK business school think that
their companies develop global leaders effectively.
• 30% of US companies admit that they have failed to exploit their
international business opportunities fully because they lack enough leaders
with the right capabilities.

21. Leadership development – wise investment or
wasteful fashion?
Thanks for listening to me!!
Mike.Sarwar@kaplan.co.uk
John.Dundas@kaplan.co.uk