The Impending Leadership Crisis
I’m getting ready to attend this year’s Human Resource Technology Conference in Las Vegas. Let me know if you plan to attend – would love to see you there. And if you’re not going, you can check out the details here.
But planning for this year’s trip reminded me of a comment made at last year’s event. One of the speakers said that companies were experiencing a crisis in leadership because they haven’t developed leaders over the past five years (i.e. during the Great Recession). I believe that’s absolutely the case.
In Deloitte’s Global Human Capital Trends report, one of the key findings from their research is that 86% of business and human resources leaders do not believe they have an adequate leadership pipeline. 38% said this was an urgent problem for their organization. It raises the question: if companies realize the problem, have they started investing in their leadership?
One new piece of research would lead us to believe “no”. According to a Harvard Business School study, 40% of respondents felt workers should brace themselves for lower pay and benefits. I have to think if companies aren’t willing to pay employees more, then are they really going to invest training dollars? The same study said organizations are looking heavily at their contingent workforce as a staffing strategy to avoid hiring full-time workers.
Personally, I’m a fan of contingent work. Not as a strategy to avoid hiring full-time employees. If the job needs to be full-time, then it should be full-time. But contingent workers can bring tremendous value to an organization. And many individuals are learning to embrace being a contingent worker. It can truly be a win-win.
However, even contingent workers need to be engaged and trained. For organizations to meet their long-term goals, training has to take place at every level of the organization. This includes leadership training. Being a leader is directly related to our ability to make decisions, communicate effectively, manage conflict, and deliver excellent customer service. Every employee at every level does these things in the course of their daily work.
What I haven’t figured out yet is the reason companies are reluctant to make developing their leadership pipeline a priority. Is it the money? Companies are making record profits. Is it the delivery method? Technology today allows tremendous flexibility to deliver training content. Maybe it’s a bit of both? Or maybe it’s something completely different?
With the increased conversation about the skills gap and the difficulty to find qualified workers, companies have to be getting awful close to this “leadership deficit” moving to a “leadership crisis”. If we’re not there already.
Image courtesy of HR Bartender
0