Retention leadership: the fundamental assumptions that guided many of the philosophies, principles, beliefs, and teachings of leadership have been largely based on the availability of an ever-expanding and perpetually better-educated talent pool. Those assumptions are about to change in a big way. All of our weather gauges are buzzing

T+D, March, 2004 by Craig R. Taylor

Every organization, large or small, that expects to grow and prosper must make talent retention a top priority. Failure to do so may be at the least a form of organizational denial and, at worst, a recipe for steady decline.

The documented impending shortage of U.S. labor, a widening skills gap fueled by the educational demands of knowledge work, and an improving economy that predicts a looming "war for talent" that will make the talent war of the late 1990s look like a skirmish all point to the need for updated retention competencies for leaders.

TalentKeepers, an employee retention firm, has identified 10 retention talents essential for leaders to understand and perform in order to retain and engage employees:

1. Build trust.

2. Build esteem.

3. Communicate.

4. Build climate.

5. Be a flexibility expert.

6. Act as talent developer and coach.

7. Build high-performance.

8. Be a retention expert.

9. Monitor retention.

10. Find talent.

Using that success formula, leaders retain and engage employees, but, most important, they earn their employees' trust.

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Each of us has at one time or another designed, facilitated, or participated in a leadership-focused learning experience. Leadership programs come in all shapes and sizes, all degrees of sophistication. They are the bread and butter of training departments. Developing leaders has long been at the center of the universe for the learning and performance improvement profession.

Beginning early in the past century, when small proprietorships gave way to the rise of major corporations following the industrial revolution, organizational hierarchies emerged, thrusting the role of leaders into the spotlight. In 1923, the American Management Association was formed, with a focus on educating leaders, and Fredrick Taylor, with his widely adopted principle of "scientific management," helped popularize and shape our early understanding of the role of leaders in managing talent.

In the second half of the century, leadership training took off when organizations, such as the Center for Creative Leadership, opened and a wave of university-based executive education programs followed in the footsteps of Wharton, the first one, in 1953. Today, in ASTD's most recent State of the Industry report, "managerial/supervisory content" is the highest ranked non-technical area in total content-related spending. Google the phrase "leadership development" and more than 7 million records emerge. The last time I looked, Amazon.com listed 59,366 book titles under the heading "Leadership."

The rush to capitalize on the widespread growth of leadership development has spawned countless theories, competency models, principles, programs, and practices. Whether it's grooming potential team leaders, preparing new supervisors, or coaching executives, the development of future and existing leaders is an immensely integral part of workplace learning. Few observers would argue that this boom has been anything but good--good for organizations, good for the people who become more confident, competent leaders, and good for people being led.

But is it possible that this decades-long journey could be getting blown off course? That the winds of change quickly picking up speed are blowing faster than the leadership movement is adapting? Think about this: Seismic forces are at work that may shake the very foundation on which leadership development practices have been built. The fundamental assumptions that guided many of the philosophies, principles, beliefs, and teachings of leadership have been largely based on the availability of an ever-expanding and perpetually better-educated talent pool. Those assumptions are about to change in a big way.

2All of our weather gauges are buzzing.

A gathering storm

In October 1991, Hurricane Grace, an unusual late-season tropical tempest, collided with a frigid and aggressive Canadian nor'easter just off the New England coast of the United States. The resulting fury was described as "the perfect storm" and recounted in a movie of the same tide. It wreaked havoc on that part of the world. As we sail into the 21st century, "an unavoidable demographic time bomb fueled by aging baby boomers and lower birth rates will result in a significant shortage of workers," says Richard Finnegan, chief client services officer for TalentKeepers, an employee retention firm. "Couple this with a widening gap between the skills demanded of today's jobs and the readiness of people entering the workforce, and the result is going to be the labor market's 'perfect storm.'"

In one of the most thorough studies of the problem to date, an analysis by the Domestic Strategy Group of the highly regarded Aspen Institute shows that growth of the prime age 24 to 54 U.S.-born workforce during the past 20 years was 44 percent. For the next 20 years, the institute projects that this growth will drop to zero. The overall U.S. labor force saw a 50 percent rise from 1980 to 2000, but will rise just 16 percent through 2020. "For the past 20 years, businesses have relied on the dramatic growth of the native-born workforce to find an ever-expanding supply of new workers. That growth is now over," says the report.