Growing Need for Cultivated Leaders

Training & Development, Feb 2006

/EXECUTIVE UPDATE/

The biggest source of an organization's future leaders is its own employees, says Right Management Consultants.

According to the results of the company's survey, fewer businesses are hiring senior-level executives from outside their organizations. In fact, only 29 percent are wooing executives away from their competitors. Twenty-seven percent are hiring from businesses other than their competitors, and 20 percent are recruiting from completely outside their industries.

"More companies prefer to build their own future leaders from the ground up," said Debbie Schroeder-Saulnier, managing principal and lead organizational consultant for Right Management Consultants. "They are assessing their highpotential employees to identify which ones have the qualities they desire in senior-level managers, and then providing them with the necessary training, coaching, and managerial experiences to fully grow them into upper management. Therefore, companies must have a good succession management system which tracks the executive qualities, skills, and abilities that have been the most instrumental in their managers' and organization's successes."

Another reason is current managers have acquired a greater understanding of the organization's culture. "Among the major reasons why executives recruited from the outside fail in their new jobs is their lack of familiarity and compatibility or 'fit' with the company's culture," said Schroeder-Saulnier.

So what management skills are officials looking for in their future executives? Survey respondents say the ability to motivate and engage others, followed by the ability to communicate effectively, strategically, and interpersonally.

Additionally, aligning employees to the strategy of their businesses and engaging managers and senior leadership in communicating with workers, ranked as the top two employee communications challenges in an earlier survey by Right and the International Association of Business Communicators Research Foundation.

Forty-eight percent of organizations in that survey said their management has not effectively communicated their business strategies to employees and engaged them in living it in their daily jobs. As a result, only about one-third-37 percent-of organizations reported that their employees are effectively aligned to the missions and visions of their businesses.

"It's no coincidence that motivating and engaging employees and strategic employee communication are the mostdesired senior management skills," said Chris Gay, Right's senior vice president and practice leader of employee engagement and communication. "Our research shows that these are the top two challenges facing businesses, and they want leaders who will help them change this."