Leadership development programs need updating to shape organizations’ future: Report

NEW DELHI, DECEMBER 3: A research has revealed strong demand for more inclusive and continuous leadership training at all levels of the organization. HR.com and Skillsoft announcing the results of research stated that most organizations lack effective leadership, a problem that stems partly from underperforming leadership development programs.

To address this lack of effectiveness in leadership programs, HR departments need to adapt employee training programs to respond to the shifting paradigm of leadership development.

The newly released research report, “Revamping Leadership Development: Gain advantages by modernizing the leadership paradigm,” is based on an industry survey conducted by HR.com in partnership with Skillsoft. The survey gathered 526 responses consisting of HR professionals from a varied representation of organization industries and sizes in the third quarter of 2018.

Findings in the research highlighted the key obstacles to effective and improved leadership development for companies in any industry. In fact, only one-fifth of HR professionals perceive their managers and executives are effectively leading them, shining a bright light on the need for significant improvement in the area of leadership. Almost all respondents point to continuous versus sporadic employee development (94 percent) as well as more inclusive training at all levels (92 percent), not just at the top.

“Companies are making huge investments in leadership development programs, but they’re not getting enough of a return on their investment,” stated Debbie McGrath, chief instigator and CEO of HR.com. “Now we need to figure out new ways of delivering leadership development that are both more effective and more efficient.”

The HR study specifically asked participants about what learning modalities they are using. Results indicated that more than half of well-led organizations are utilizing coaching, mentoring, and eLearning methods, pointing HR departments to pursue these modalities in the future in order to ensure their business success.

“As organizations flatten, leadership development must become democratized to ensure that all current and potential leaders master the practices and mindsets needed to excel in today’s rapidly evolving, technology-enabled business context,” said Heide Abelli, SVP, Content Product Management at Skillsoft.

He added that the findings clearly show that new approaches to leadership development must be pursued, including the greater use of technology to serve up engaging, contextualized and modern content which is accessible in the moment of need. The study shows that continual learning is the key to success versus sporadic, discontinuous approaches to leadership competency development.