Report Finds Leadership is 'Easier Said Than Done'

At the same time as employers are reporting growth in individual employees’ managerial and leadership skills, they’re also reporting their ability to make use of those skills is sometimes limited by organizational structures and processes, according to the May 2014 research report, “Leadership – easier said than done,” by CIPD, a U.K.-based nonprofit professional body for HR and people development.

4 Factors that Stand in the Way of Success

The report identifies four organizational factors that prevent capable individuals from leading effectively:

1. Hierarchy and bureaucracy. Although organizations encourage individuals to take charge and make decisions, in practice they aren’t able to do so because of top-down hierarchies that are in place and difficulty operating through the bureaucracy that comes with complex hierarchies.

2. Short-term, bottom-line focus. While organizations say they value leadership growth, they tend to evaluate and reward employees for short-term gains and progress that improves the bottom line.

3. Individualism. When leaders are rewarded for their individual achievements, they tend to focus on those to the detriment of the bigger picture, which adds up to trouble for organizations.

4. “Us” and “them” mentality. Although organizations are taking steps to increase diversity, their evaluation systems still leave a lot of room for subjective judgments, which hurt diversity efforts by rewarding “sameness.”

3 Steps to Improving Leadership Capacity

The report explains that fixing these misaligned structures and processes will require to shift their focus from solely training individual leaders and managers to incorporating the system in which these individuals operate into leadership development programs. According to the report, employers can bring about positive changes if they apply an organizational development approach to improving leadership capacity through three key steps:

1. Define the leadership and management you need and where an intervention is appropriate.

HR should begin by identifying the challenges their organization is facing and will face in the future, and then determine what leadership and management they will need to respond to those challenges. When the need for leadership and management is defined, organizations are able think of solutions on the organizational level instead of only developing the capabilities of individual leaders and managers.

When defining leadership and management, HR should consider all stakeholders: the leaders, but also the followers and their need to be led and managed, as well as the context in which managers and their teams interact.

2. Understand the psychological and social barriers to the leadership and management your organization needs.

HR should take a wider look at the factors limiting learning and affecting individuals’ ability to apply skills. To do this, HR must first understand the individual psychology of learning, to help individuals overcome resistance to change, the power of habit and groupthink, while taking advantage of the psychological enablers of change: curiosity, brain plasticity and adaptability.

Second, HR needs to understand the social context in which behavioral change is expected to happen. They need to consider whether the formal systems and processes shape the desired leadership and management behaviors in the context of the challenges facing their organization. They also need to identify the barriers within the informal organizational culture that may act as incentives for negative managerial behavior.

3. Identify and influence the key players with the power to change the status quo.

Finally, even if formal processes for identifying, training and monitoring leaders are in place, the informal power dynamic can still act against individuals demonstrating leadership. HR needs to understand where the influencers of change are and use those influencers to shift the organizational culture to be more supportive of the need for leadership.

Business partners need to improve their understanding both the operational and strategic agenda and challenge top-down attempts to overrule decisions with authoritative power.

HR needs to find a suitable solution that takes into account both short-term and long-term outcomes of that decision by:

• Being business-savvy.

• Conducting needs analysis rather than simply monitoring progress.

• Considering the organizational environment and culture.

• Proactively sharing information and mediating between perspectives.

• Identifying influencers, both through formal and informal people management systems and processes.

Let us know if you’d like our help developing your organization’s leaders and overcoming organizational challenges to their growth.Success Labs is a full-service, strategic organizational and leadership development company located in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. For more than 25 years, our expert team of consultants has worked with hundreds of companies to explore their business potential and improve their company and cultural performance. Contact us to get proactive about your people strategy.