by Matthew S. Richter

I have written before that many leadership development programs are a waste of time and money. Not because they lack good and positive motives. To the contrary. It is usually because they lack definition, commitment at the top, supportive policies, effective and trained followers, or even opportunities for those developed to lead… There are a myriad of reasons leadership development fails. So, if you are going to do it, if you are going to invest time, sweat, money, and productivity toward this often perilous endeavor, then here are eight tips that will increase your likelihood of success.

1. Determine why. What are you hoping leadership development will do for you? Really answer this question as explicitly and specifically as possible. Is there an actual business issue that having more leaders will resolve? Is there a strategic opportunity out there that requires more leadership than we already have? The more specific you can be, the more likely you will identify the true training opportunity or the true organization development problem that needs solving. Too often I hear “bench strength” as the answer. By definition, you need good bench strength to run your business. Your leaders will usually come from that bench, but that doesn’t mean all bench warmers need to be leaders.

2. Leaders must lead people toward action. So, figure out the context for their leadership and then help them develop the knowledge and skill to lead others to do “something.” Is there a situation in the organization that requires leadership? In other words, is there a grounding reason for these new leaders to lead? Leaders without purpose create their own and can cause revolution!

3. Rather than invest millions to develop lots of leaders, pinpoint the few you and the rest of the organization should and could follow. Look at the people you are going to train and ask whether you really want them to actually lead? According to James MacGregor Burns, leadership is defined as mobilizing a group of people from point A to point B. It involves, in some models, inspiration and in others, forms of motivation. Are all these people required to lead? Or, are these people the tools the actual leaders will use to mobilize the masses? Too many leaders… and we must ask who are the followers.

4. Yes… this next tip is probably politically incorrect, but it matters. Do these people have the innate talent to become leaders? Do they have charisma? Do they have the intelligence? The strategic thinking capability?And other such things some claim align to leadership? While I cannot argue a one-size-fits-all model, there are some basic, transferrable talents and abilities all leaders seem to have (as do many functional roles).

5. Will the organizational structure allow people to lead? Is the structure set up to permit leaders at lower levels in the organization to actually lead? If not, why bother? It is one thing to “create” a bunch of new leaders— if that is even possible— but if the structure does not permit them to function as leaders and itself can undermine, then you need to first ensure the capacity for your participants to do what you have trained them to do.

6. Related to Tip #3, invest those millions of dollars or euros creating great managers and lieutenants who can execute the leaders’ visions and strategies. A lot of good management is required to make stuff happen.

7. Too many organizations make up their own meaning for leadership. They step out of their own zones of competence and tell the talent management team what to teach. Defining complicated meta concepts is usually not a part of their day jobs. There are only a few different definitions of leadership and only a few more ways to set criteria and characteristics for those definitions. Rather than invest time and money creating your own definitions, know what leadership is generally. In other words, pick a leadership model, ascribe to it, and determine how you will adapt that to your culture appropriately. Peter G. Northouse’s Leadership: Theory and Practice, offers a wonderful summary of the different models and leadership practices research supports. A great read.

8. Finally… ask yourself… is the money we are about to spend on developing a bunch of people to lead, worth it? Is there a better way to invest in our people, in the organization, and in our business? The leadership development ROI, in the best of cases, is difficult to measure. Can you validate that the money spent, is indeed well spent?