My article in BrandsITon April 11th, 2018.

Despite having invested in training programs of several months in duration, many corporations continue to plateau, their leaders frustrated and unable to work towards their desired goals with a happy face. The frustration is shared by their immediate team members. This in brief is the conclusion of a study discussed by McKinsey institute in its report What’s missing in leadership development? Its title hints clearly at a major deficiency of many programs aimed at developing and educating contemporary leaders.

Low level of satisfaction

Today’s leaders need many tools to help them lead or manage their organizations. In fact, ever more tools of this sort are available. They have been made to help the leader immediately respond to new challenges such as global digitization, rapidly advancing technologies and fierce competition. Theoretically, things should be improving. Leaders are aware of the transformations affecting the business world while organizations bring them up to date through training programs. Added to this is the self-education of contemporary leaders who themselves arrange external training, participate in webinars, and follow the achievements of their gurus, as shared in TED conferences. Things should be improving but most of the time, they are not. Training programs of many months in duration fail to produce the intended results, as subjectively assessed by their participants and their subordinates. Is the management unable to translate the acquired knowledge into day-to-day practice, or is the knowledge they gain too far removed from reality? (even that outside of the organization itself) Or perhaps the problem lies in the companies whose structures, habits and processes are so strongly cemented that even the most ambitious HR development projects cannot make them budge?

Killer statistics

The report I am referring to mentions a few critical areas, which – as many of the surveyed leaders agree – have been failing. Notably, and this will not sound optimistic, only 11 percent of the 500 leaders polled agreed with the statement that their leadership development interventions have achieved the desired results. The fact that such results remain unimpressive is surprising given the aspirations behind and the significance of such efforts as well as the sizes of the operations managed by the surveyed.

Link to the full article (in Polish)

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