Dear HR Directors, CPOs, COOs and CEOs - I have a challenge for you.
Is your approach to leadership development in your company producing nothing but compliant, corporate clones, when what you actually need in your future leaders is originality, agility and fresh thinking?
Go with me on this please, just another sentence or two.
Picture the individuals you’ve earmarked for tomorrow’s leadership roles.
Now ask yourself, honestly, after they’ve completed your internal management development programme (whatever that looks like) do you believe the business will suddenly feel a surge of inspiring modernity from them ?
In a world where the pace of change is staggering and disruption is everywhere, are you 100% confident your next-gen leaders are ready to inject energy, drive bold ideas, and lead with originality and imagination ?
If your answer is “yes!” – brilliant, well done you. Thanks for reading and have a great day.
But if you're in the big majority who thought, “Hmm… not really” then, Id like to share something...
The issue here is that your high-potentials are likely going to be pushed through the same tired management development schemes you’ve used for years. Formulaic. Predictable. Safe.
DULL.
These programmes were never designed to produce innovators. They were built to produce consistency and compliance; a cookie-cutter recreation of some idealised model of yesterday’s leader.
And they’re still doing exactly that.
Promising juniors go in sparky and full of ideas.
They come out cautious, corporate, and risk-averse.
Proudly wearing their new stripes perhaps, but in a corporate straightjacket and missing their old spark.
And if you don’t have a particular leadership development programme in place, it’s no better - junior talent will simply mimic the behaviour and style of what they see ‘above’ them in the company.
Goodbye originality. Hello “same old, same old.”
Be honest: are you accidentally bashing the imagination out of your best people ?
Once upon a time, uniformity in management training was the goal. Not anymore. Not in this market, not with today’s challenges.
And your back-up plan?
You’ll bring in “fresh thinking” by recruiting externally. Oh yay ! great idea !! especially if you do this right after you’ve bashed out the bright lights that used to shine in the eyes of all your own home-grown talent !
Recruiting leaders externally is really expensive. It’s risky and it’s disheartening. And it undermines the very talent you say you value.
The truth is: your future leaders already exist inside your business. The modernity and evolution you seek can and should be led by those who already proudly work for you.
But your internal future-leaders will only thrive if you create the conditions for them to grow into leadership models that work for them, not into the same mold of the leadership clones that led your business last year, and the year before that (and before that, and … etc).
Let your up-and-coming talent find their own Leadership Brand. Then support them in building on those magnificent foundations.
NO STRAITJACKET REQUIRED. (To misquote Phil Collins!)
Your junior talent doesn’t need a management cookie-cutter programme.
They need space. They need trust. They need development that’s as individual as they are.
So let’s stop producing compliant, corporate clones.
And start growing bold, human, original leaders; the kind who stay, thrive, and make change happen.
Ditch the one-size-fits-all plan.
Build leadership as dynamic and diverse as your future demands.
I founded Elephant Leadership Camps to help you do exactly that.
If you’re serious about growing real leaders, not replicas, we should talk. Contact us on info@elephantleadershipcamps.co.uk
And tell your high-potentials about us – tell them to read about how we can jet-pack their careers by unleashing their hidden leadership potential. Tell them to visit www.elephantleadershipcamps.co.uk
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