Leadership role

Leadership role

Preparing your employees for future leadership roles consists of two activities: planning and development. Planning includes the following activities:

• identifying employees who show potential for assuming greater responsibility

• assessing those individuals against some kind of leadership model to understand their strengths and development needs

• developing your leadership model or set of models that describe the elements of leadership critical to your organization

• identifying the kinds of roles that will need to be filled

• ensuring a flow of succession opportunities even if it means removing current leaders that are performing adequately in their role

Developing future leaders goes beyond the classroom. In fact, successful leaders cite other factors besides training when asked to describe their best source of preparation:

• stretch experiences
• a formative mentor
• dealing with hardship and conflict