Leadership development in the future has to and will be considerably different from how we did it before COVID-19. In what ways should it be different?
First, it has to work. It has to actually change behaviour and therefore ensure return on investment; return on our intention for doing it. If the intention is to get leaders to perform better, then that must happen. If the intention is to change behaviour that sustains a desired culture, then that must happen.
Second, it has to happen faster. Everything happens faster these days, hence leadership development output should follow suit. And the world needs Authentic and Purposeful leaders like never before, so we must expedite the emergence of this part in all human beings.
Third, development, training has to be a way of life, a constant and daily process of upskilling, improvement, sharpening the leadership saw. The ad hoc leadership program just won’t be nearly sufficient. Somehow, leaders must place leadership at the forefront of their minds, daily. It has to be part of their daily intake, like breakfast, lunch and supper – on a good day.
Fourth, it has to be much more cost effective. We are entering unprecedented negative economic territory, yet we need quality leaders and successful leadership development more desperately than before. So how do we get more – points 1 to 3 – for less?
The best way to achieve the above is by leveraging technology. But, not just any technology. Very importantly, it has to create and sustain a Leadership Ecosystem, which includes a community, but it’s more than that. Allow me to unpack.
If you want to learn a language fast, the best way is to immerse yourself in an ecosystem or community where you hear it spoken around and to you; where you speak it daily and hear yourself doing it. The chosen community will also determine what version of the language you pick up – the streetwise or academic version? In short, you have to immerse yourself in language learning activities daily. Leadership Development is much the same. If you want to expedite leadership thinking, understanding and leadership fitness, immerse yourself and your leaders in a Leadership Ecosystem where you are surrounded by leadership discussion, content, language, training, other leaders, collaboration and more. Where possible, for the most part ensure the ecosystem consists of authentic leaders and quality leadership experts as that will offer you the best version of leadership.
The ecosystem must have the potential to attract and present everything relevant to leadership best practice, on multiple levels:
- Societal level – you can’t grow and lead in isolation from society. The ecosystem must link you up with a broader societal leadership discussion and effort.
- Organisational level – you also can’t grow away from or out of context with where you spend most of your waking hours; where you often function as a leader. The ecosystem must provide for organisational leadership discussions, learning and collaboration.
- Team and Group level – ultimately you grow in order to move/lead a group of people towards a common goal, starting with at least your team. The ecosystem must allow for team and relevant group conversations and growing together.
- Self level – it starts with you. Lead yourself by constantly working on eradicating bad or weak habits and behaviour while developing new and healthy habits and behaviours. The ecosystem must help individual leaders act and be accountable to themselves, teams, organisation and society.
- Content level – stimulating and fresh, relevant content, resources, knowledge that assist you to think at a whole new level. An ecosystem that doesn’t have a growing library of relevant content in various formats isn’t an ecosystem. There must be a comprehensive library from which to study Leadership best practice.
- Thought Leader level – tapping into a host of experts, authors and advisors that give perspective and input. This component is essential to a powerful ecosystem.
To significantly improve the success of leadership development in your organisation it has to work, happen faster, be a consistent daily process, be more cost effective and it must allow for leaders to be immersed in all things leadership at any given moment. Ultimately, your Leadership Ecosystem must help leaders Think and Lead on a whole new level.
When you think leadership…ThinkLead.
About ThinkLead®
It is a digital Leadership Ecosystem in which you immerse your leaders so that they learn to THINK and LEAD at an unprecedented level…faster; so that they can build authentic character by changing behavior faster, through their Personal Leadership Development Plan inside I-LEAD that sends regular reminders; so that they can act and align with their team, organization and environment within the WE-LEAD space; so that they can engage the ever growing, relevant and interactive resource library inside the I-LEARN space, in order to Re-Learn and THINK at an unprecedented level.
If you are an individual leader that wants to change, grow and advance faster, let us know and we will welcome you into the ThinkLead®Leadership Ecosystem.
If you represent an organization and the above makes sense, lets talk…on Zoom.
