Author Description

"It's estimated that U.S. companies spend over $14 billion annually on leadership development (Wentworth and Loew 2013, O'Leonard & Loew 2012.) Match that number to the abundant and growing research that finds most leadership development to be ineffective and the conclusion is a phenomenal amount of waste. A few of the research studies indicate: A 2015 study by the Brandon Hall Group found that 81 percent of organizations reported that they were not very effective at developing their leaders. Only 18 percent indicated that their leaders were very effective at meeting key business goals (Loew 2015) A 2017 survey by McKinsey found that a mere 11 percent of five hundred global executives felt that their leadership development efforts achieved desired results (Feser et al. 2017). In the 2017 CEO Challenge study conducted by the Conference Board, 41 percent of global CEOs reported that their leadership development efforts were of very high or high quality (Mitchel and van Ark 2017). The remedy for this situation is to have business strategy drive leadership development instead of creating programs that match a one size fits all approach to leadership. This book's approach, called Strategy-Driven Leadership Development (SDLD), puts business strategy first. It maintains an emphasis on building leadership programs around what it will take to make the business successful as opposed to implementing a program in the hopes that it will benefit the strategy. The following four components naturally flow within the model: 1. BUSINESS STRATEGY Because strategy is the key driver for each organization, leadership development must flow from it and support the effort to fulfill the strategic mission. 2. ORGANIZATION DEMAND Strategy determines the organization's demand for talent and skills. Leadership development must seek to enable the skills needed to successfully execute the strategy. 3. LEADERSHIP CAPACITY Once the organization demand is clear, it's time to assess the capabilities