Every two years my company, The RBL Group, partners with human recourses consulting firm, Hewitt, to conduct a study on the top companies for leaders.
It highlights those companies that have gone beyond the basics of grooming strong leaders to come up with new ways to test their employees in the global marketplace.
What’s most interesting about this study is how similar the majority of companies are in the ways they approach development, and what factors differentiate the best. Hewitt’s Bob Gandossy and I have come up with six components that distinguish the top firms.
+ Centralised efforts. Top companies centralise their management of talent. Top talent is managed by the corporate office, not by a function, business or geographical region. Hence the term “corporate property.”
+ Top executive involvement. If you want to develop leaders, you need to involve leaders. Proctor & Gamble Chairman A.G. Lafley conducts his own senior leadership development program. Lafley personally invites each participant to the programme, while members of P&G’s senior executive team coach new recruits every month.
+ A focus on a few key processes. Top companies for leaders live according to the principle of finding and hiring top talent. If you hire great people, you’re more likely to find great leaders.
+ A focus on strategy. Top firms are never laissez-faire about leadership development. They see the infusion and growth of talent as crucial to their strategic success, and they are unrelenting in their approach to building talent.
+ Building leaders and leadership. Leadership capability increases as human resources systems, such as performance management, compensation and job assignments, are linked across organisational boundaries. Top companies support a culture of integration and offer opportunities for their executives to develop from within the firm.
+ Creating value for inside and outside stakeholders. Top firms develop leaders who have the desired competencies to both deliver on their corporate strategy and ensure customer satisfaction. These companies help their leaders not only to become better people – they develop executives who know how to provide real value for employees, customers, investors and other stakeholders.
(Norm Smallwood is co-founder of The RBL Group, and co-author, with Dave Ulrich and Kate Sweetman, of “The Leadership Code.”)
Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate
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