Missing Leadership: A Question of Talent Management

Friday, March 02, 2012 Question

In a February 7, 2012 press release, Right Management’s ManpowerGroup reported that 31% of the senior manager in 600 U.S. public and private firms who responded to their 2012 talent survey stated that a “lack of high-potential leaders” within their organizations was a significant challenge.

Michael Haid, Senior Vice President of Talent Management for Right Management points to years of “organizational contraction and less internal investment.” Furthermore, Haid credits “lean times” and a “tough competitive environment” as challenges to an organization’s ability to “recruit, retain or develop future leaders.”

Faced the deepest and longest recession since the Great Depression of the 1930’s, it is no doubt that many organizations saw investment in “potential” future organizational leadership as something that could be put on hold until better times. Unfortunately, betters times are often conditioned on having a strong supply chain of not only raw materials, but also talent. That talent needs to be a mix of technical and leadership to take advantage of emerging opportunities as times do get better.

Rarely does leadership automatically emerge from some combination of education, training, and past experience. Just as a great product has to be conceived, designed, engineered, refined, manufactured, and marketed; potential great leaders have to be sought out, developed, groomed, mentored, and yes, rewarded. Since great leaders are often highly marketable, organizations have a difficult time retaining them even in the deepest recessions. What is required is a highly visible means of identifying potential leaders and shaping them along the organization’s path to their appropriate role.

The need and timing for a replacement leader may occur for numerous reasons, some of which are under the control of the organization, others are not. Most organizations cannot afford to miss even one beat in its efforts to compete. The lack of a leader in a key role can be the difference between failure, just getting by, and success. Therefore, it is critical to have a mechanism in place to quickly move a new leader into their role fully ready to take on the challenges facing them. Failure to do so, not only places customers and clients at risk, but support staff is also at risk of seeking opportunities elsewhere.

Even after that new leader is in their position, leadership development must continue to be used to evaluate and refine the leader’s ongoing performance. “The only thing constant in life is change”, and this apples more so to the business world. Organizational leaders face change every day in competitors, processes, methods, regulations, costs, prices, and the list goes on. Thus, to be effective, leaders must be constantly prepared to meet the challenge du jour. To ensure that leaders have the tools to meet that next crucial challenge, their toolbox has to be upgraded and expanded. This may require a combination of internal as well as external leadership development which includes professional coaching and executive education.

A final question seems to be, where have all the pre-recession leaders gone? They are all still here. Many have chosen to start businesses of their own, either solely or in concert with other like minded leaders. Other have selected encore careers or simply selected alternative life paths.