HR And Leadership Development

Taking a look at the 2012 Society for Human Resource Management ((SHRM) survey, Challenges Facing HR Over the Next 10 Years, ‘developing leaders’ takes the number two spot of concerns HR must address as identified by  52 percent of respondents.  This is a big jump from the 2010 survey, in which a mere 29 percent of respondents named leadership development a pressing HR challenge. In business, as in the rest of life, leadership skills are critical now more than ever.

The number one spot in the SHRM survey with 60 percent of respondents is ‘retaining and rewarding the best employees’.  This makes sense as a lead-in, since I’d argue the best employees are leaders – people leaders, management leaders, creative leaders, technical leaders or sales leaders. We need to fill the leadership gap, and fast.

Here are the top four challenges to developing leaders and a bit about how to address them.

1) Invest in leadership development. Whether you believe leaders are born or made, companies still need to invest in their best employees to develop and sustain leadership qualities.

2) Create a culture of collaboration. Leaders are at their best when the company culture demands collaboration. Rewarding individual success is necessary but not sufficient.

3) Develop communications skills. We may expect our leaders to be good communicators but too often it’s not the case. Good communicators build teams and trust; poor communicators create and feed uncertainty.

4) Drive and sustain real accountability. Leaders must be accountable. They must own the problems they need to solve and own their failures to be credible when claiming success.

HR and leaders alike have many responsibilities. Maybe among the most important is developing the next generation of leaders and being more innovative as times change rapidly before our eyes. Where would you start?