An Unfair Advantage

Malcolm Forbes, former publisher of Forbes magazine, once said, “No one’s a leader if there are no followers.” That declaration — so simple and obvious — should be foremost in learning leaders’ minds as they select employees for leadership development. For leaders to have followers, learning and development professionals need to ensure the way leaders are developed is fair.

According to an online survey of more than 500 managers and executives conducted by American Management Association (AMA) Enterprise, one quarter of employees in the U.S. and Canada regard talent development programs as less than equitable. Only 12 percent consider efforts to identify and develop future leaders as impartial and even-handed. Developing leaders is ineffective if their subordinates and peers do not respect the selections.

“When the organization makes a commitment to a particular employee, others should understand the criteria that enabled that individual to merit it,” said Linda Henman, president of consultancy Henman Performance Group. “Each person should have specific, measurable objectives for his or her job. Those who meet or exceed them should merit opportunity for growth. Those that don’t, shouldn’t. Once people show proficiency at a certain level of task completion or decision making, they should be given additional responsibilities. Not more work, but more complex jobs, higher caliber decisions, more accountability and more power.”

According to Henman, leadership doesn’t necessarily come with a title or status. Responsibility and accountability come with that title; leading, or the potential to lead, requires the ability to transform a team to levels employees could not otherwise reach. Being invited to participate in development opportunities to take on this task marks an individual as a high potential, someone who has shown through productivity, performance reviews and objective testing that the company should invest in him or her further.

“Everyone should be given an equal opportunity to qualify for the programs, but only those who meet the criteria should be eligible for them,” Henman said. “In other words, 20 percent of your people — the high potentials — should receive 80 percent of your coaching.”