There is a new paradigm for developing leaders

If you have told your employees that they have a promising future at your organization but are not offering them opportunities for leadership development, such as support for improving their interpersonal skills or access to personalized coaching and mentoring, they may not be with you for the long haul. This is among the main findings of new research in modern leadership development conducted by Harvard Business Review Analytic Services.

Harvard Business Review Analytic Services’ researchers looked into the critical issues organizations face as they create skilled leaders who are capable of managing the complexities of our current workplace. The survey gathered responses from 665 organizations. One-third of respondents were from organizations with 10,000 or more employees, and the majority (59%) held positions at the executive or senior management level or served on their company’s board. The dataset included participants from various industries, including technology, manufacturing, and financial services.

The results recognize that leadership development programs that are exclusive, generic, and not aligned with current goals will fail to inspire employees or deliver best-in-class leaders. By contrast, successful leadership development programs of today are closely aligned to an organization’s overall business strategies. They are also consciously designed to produce leaders attuned to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) goals, as well as ones comfortable with today’s hybrid workplaces.

The results align with modern HR and leadership thinking. As Dani Johnson, co-founder and principal analyst for RedThread Research, a HR research firm, says, “Organizations are starting to realize that leadership development goes way beyond the leadership programs that used to be. We’ve heard all kinds of things we haven’t heard in the past, like how leadership development isn’t just a one-time two-week course and then you level up — and that leadership needs consistent support.”

For example, the importance of strong leadership to organizational success seems to be widely recognized, with 89% of the 665 executives surveyed agreeing that organizations with best-in-class leaders are more likely to be successful. Ninety percent of the executives the Harvard Business Review Analytic Services team spoke to say they believe it is important to provide leadership development more broadly across their organizations.

The report outlines several best practices that can improve leadership development, such as leveraging mentoring and leadership coaching more effectively and implementing inclusive and customized leadership development programs. Let’s see how.

The limitations of traditional leadership training

The research results reveal a growing trend towards the use of leadership coaching, with 58% of respondents utilizing coaching reporting an increase in its use over the past five years. The increasing importance of relational skills for leaders – for example, showing empathy and emotional intelligence – appears to be a driving force behind this trend for relationship-based programs. Many organizations the Harvard Business Review Analytic Services team spoke to are adopting relationship-based approaches to leadership development, particularly via coaching (such as hiring professional advisors to guide employee growth) and mentoring (where an experienced individual provides one-on-one guidance to a less-experienced employee).

It’s increasingly clear that traditional leadership training alone is being seen as no longer sufficient. Despite being the most commonly used method in leadership development programs (534 out of 665 respondents), leadership skills training was ranked relatively low in terms of effectiveness by HR leaders, with only 55% of respondents considering it to be “somewhat” effective.

In addition to the limitations of traditional leadership training, respondents emphasize the growing importance of coaching and mentoring in leadership development. A significant majority (86%) agreed that the evolving nature of work necessitates a more personalized approach to leadership skills development. Of those currently utilizing relationship-based methods such as coaching and mentoring, 88% recognize the distinct value of a personalized approach to leadership development.

Our data also suggests that coaching and mentoring are increasingly seen as meeting the growing need for personalization in leadership development programs. A significant proportion of respondents (86%) agree that relationship-based leadership development provides better individual support for participants on their leadership journeys.

Moreover, coaching itself is evolving rapidly. In 2021, RedThread Research found that coaching is becoming more inclusive, broader in scope, and more diverse in delivery methods, with a greater emphasis on group coaching and varied-length engagements.

As organizations use coaching methods across a variety of programs, another feature of today’s approach to leadership coaching is that it’s seen as an ongoing form of development. As Ian Ziskin, president of EXec EXcel Group, a human capital coaching and consulting firm in Sag Harbor, New York, says, “For us, there is a core leadership development content experience which used to be viewed as ‘enough.’ Now, these programs are being supplemented and supported by ongoing coaching as a way of helping the individual process what they’ve learned and to give them the tools to apply it to themselves more effectively as a leader, on an ongoing basis.”

“More self-assured and balanced as a human being”

Developmental assignments and job rotation programs are effective forms of relationship-based leadership development that also play a crucial role in cultivating leaders for today’s needs. Given that, it’s not that surprising that leadership skills training, mentoring, and leadership coaching are the top methods that respondents intend to increase their use of.

Take Horizon Media, a New York City-based media agency, which is using coaching and mentoring across its entire workforce. Its HR business partner, Ricki Goldhamer, explains, “The goal is to get our people to where they want to be as individuals, to enhance their skills, make them feel more self-assured and balanced as a human being, and to give them essential tools as professionals.”

Today, more and more HR leaders are turning to coaching and mentoring as it becomes increasingly enabled by digital platforms that manage content delivery and administration and also allow users to scale their use of relationship-based leadership development more cost-effectively to a larger population of employees.

Read more: HR professionals, C-suite leaders recognize need for shift from processes to people, survey finds

Finally, organizations that call coaching and mentoring key parts of their organization’s leadership development are particularly likely to strongly agree (59% for coaching, 51% for mentoring) that their new leadership development strategy is now very aligned with their organization’s business goals.

By more effectively developing the leaders who are in charge of executing the business’ strategy, organizations are getting a double win: more effective leaders and a more successful business.

Amy Lavoie. is Chief People Officer at people development platform Torch.io.