Accelerated Leadership Development
"Leaders on snorting steeds [the visionary
greats!] are important.
But great managers are the bedrock of great organizations." |
| — Tom Peters, Author, Speaker, Learner
& Listener |
One of the most compelling and exciting new business cases for
Emotional Intelligence is the acceleration of the leadership development
process. Numerous business sages such as Peter Drucker, Peter Senge,
and Tom Peters and others agree that leadership is the single most
important ingredient of business success.
Paradoxically, leadership can also be a constraint to business success
if effective leadership skills are lacking or an effective leadership
development process does not exist. This is exacerbated by intense
competition among companies to attract and retain quality leadership.
Johnson and Johnson Chairman and CEO, Ralph Larsen, described the
dilemma as follows: "As you look at our growth projections
over time, we're going to need more and more leaders. Leadership
is the biggest single constraint to growth at Johnson & Johnson,
and it is the most critical business issue we face."
This is interesting for several reasons. We typically envision
constraints as being financial, headcount, manufacturing equipment,
logistics, technology related, etc. Current demographic data, labor
shortages and intense competition for the best-qualified people
create an urgency to accelerate leadership development. To do so
creates a unique and competitive business advantage.
Management is about managing things. Leadership is about leading
people. Leadership skills are about our awareness, ability, and
actions. Leadership is about leveraging Emotional Intelligence skills
by tapping into this power to improve individual, team and organizational
performance.
Raising leaders' awareness of the power of Emotional Intelligence,
while also developing EI skills, creates a more deliberate and accelerated
process of high-performance leadership development.
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