I found myself wide awake in my bed this morning suffering the effects of jet lag one encounters when changing 7 time zones when a realization came to me. I believe my company has a leadership crisis. This should not have come as a revelation to me because I believe most companies have a leadership crisis or, if not a crisis, a leadership challenge. The aspect of the realization was not with the executive leadership or senior management, it was with middle management and what I view as a lack of a systematic program to identify and provide training to those not yet in leadership. I don't think we really give enough thought to who was the qualities and/or potential to move into leadership roles. Once someone has been identified as a potential leader or put into a leadership position, there is no program (other than the haphazard training received from the school of hard knocks) in place to help them grow their leadership skills. And, worse yet, I don't see our current managers working on ways to improve their leadership skills.
My company has an internal Functional Excellence (FE) program, a program to help improve along a skill line such as Software Engineers, Test Engineers, etc. For a long time, there was no functional excellence for managers. A group of a few managers identified this gap and created an FE group for Line Managers. I am of the opinion that the meetings needed to focus more on leadership so, at three of our four meetings this past year, I provided a brief leadership training to my peers which seemed to go pretty good. I also volunteered to run a book study on a leadership book with any interested parties. No one took any interest in the the book study. This is the background that fueled my thoughts this morning while I was experiencing the affects of jet lag. In my opinion, we have a problem in two areas. I offered a hand to my peers and it was not accepted.
I am now going to change my focus and extend my hand to those who, I believe, have leadership potential, to those who have recently been moved into first time leadership roles, to those who would like to step into leadership roles. My plan is to invite people to a meeting where I share my vision for an interactive program to help them improve leadership skills. I will offer 5 to 10 of them the opportunity to be part of a pilot program lasting 6 months to a year to learn about leadership. This program will have a high bar for membership. The program will require commitment from anyone who wants to attend. I will not waste my time nor the time of the group on individuals not willing to give the effort required to grow as a leader. If the assignment is to read a section of a book, I expect it to be not just read but masticated, digested with thoughts ready to share with the team. I expect and will settle for nothing less than full participation in all sessions. If they will not fully give to any part of the program the consequence is they will be dropped from the program. I would rather work with 1 committed person than 100 that are lukewarm.
I want to work with people that have to dance not people that just want to dance, people who feel leadership development is vital to their growth as leaders and not those who feel learning about leadership is simply a means to a promotion. I want to work with people with the mindset that leadership is a key ingredient to human endeavor. I want to work with and help grow people that believe effective leadership, that true leadership is for the betterment of the people not to satisfy the ego of the leader. I want to work with people who, like me, believe leaders exist to serve the followers. I want to work with these people because I believe the future of the company and it's people are contingent upon growing the next generation of leaders.
You work in the wrong place and i highly doubt you get your desired person...
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