Effective leaders understand the importance of getting employees in the driver’s seat and encouraging them to take on a strong role in their professional development. Everyone wants a leader they can respect and trust. Effective leadership means developing an environment that fosters employee engagement and retention. Corporations that don’t have effective leadership often struggle in recruiting talent, further impacting their company’s performance by failing to truly engage their existing employees.
Providing employees with the necessary tools to execute their job and opportunities for personal learning and development are basic to keeping engagement high and retaining employees. Successful organizations know that in order to do so, there must be strategies in place to train and develop competent leaders at every level. Effective leaders know how to be a good coach, give constructive feedback and provide direction without micromanaging, according to a white paper by the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL).
However, the impending retirement of baby boomers currently in the workforce has concerned many HR leaders. The best of this group focus is not only the current demands for leaders but also the future needs of their organization. Today’s globally competitive landscape for talent has further compounded the problem developing what is commonly being labeled as the leadership gap. In essence, the leadership gap is defined by quality and effectiveness of leaders today and the number of leaders and the skills organization needs both now and in the future.
In a recent leadership study conducted by Development Dimensions International, although the quality of organizational leadership improved from 2009 to 2014, the percentage of HR professionals who believe their leaders to be of high quality didn’t, according to the article, “Study Reveals 4 Leadership Gaps That Impede Performance,” on Forbes.com.
In the same study, the Global Leadership Forecast revealed less than 50 percent of leaders felt “very prepared” to address any CEO challenges, the top four being human capital, customer relationships, innovation and operational excellence. Only 27 percent felt they were “very prepared” to be the leader to create an optimal workplace environment.
The CCL conducted a survey across 24 organizations to find out if leaders have the skills and tools to sustain current leadership needs and meet future demands. The survey revealed leaders are not only unprepared for the future, but also lack adequate skills to be effective today.
According to Jennifer Deal, millennial expert and senior research scientist at CCL, the leadership gap concern is not exclusive to the influx of the millennials and retirement of baby boomers.
“There’s no reason to think that millennials will be any less effective leaders than any previous generation entering the workforce,” said Deal, who believes the leadership gap has less to do with generations and is more about leadership effectiveness and employee development. “As each generation moves up and learns how things work, they should learn how to be good leaders.”
Outdated leadership styles and ineffective day-to-day techniques teach employees bad habits. Instead, employees should observe leaders who are competent in their roles. In order to address the number of challenges regarding leadership effectiveness, organizations need to implement a number of best practices and solutions to drive success. This might include developing a leadership competency model to analyze what skills are needed to improve employee development, encouraging high potentials into training and deciding compensation based on performance. The key is to implement an effective leadership strategy at all levels so employees are ready to take on a leadership position at any time. By making leadership development a priority, decreasing resistance to change and increasing the amount of money spent in executing a leadership effectiveness plan, leaders can inspire commitment, form collaborative relationships and promote engagement within an organization.
“Leadership development should be a priority and different challenges may require different leadership styles and ways of thinking,” said Jean Leslie, director of strategic initiatives at CCL. “One of the biggest problems we have created in the training industry is our dependency on the organization or company to take on the drive for leadership development. Instead the employee should see that as part of their job and responsibility.”
Although there isn’t anything fundamentally different about the needs and demands of generations entering the workforce, developing employee engagement and retention strategies require a crucial set of leadership skills. Part of the plan should be to help leaders understand what it means to encourage employees to take control of their own learning and development so they remain a viable part of the performance of the company.
