With Trillion Dollar Leadership Programmes Around, Why Are Enough Effective Leaders not Found?

PART I

Abstract: 

There are a large number of leadership development programmes all over the world. An article in the prestigious Forbes magazine cites a ‘Training Industry’ finding that “leadership development is a $366 billion global industry”. But the tragedy is that “most development programmes do not work”. Add to this the losses from (anticipated) benefits; Dr Ed Holton in his piece "America's Trillion-Dollar Training Problem" thinks 8:1 is quite reasonable. The total losses then go beyond a trillion dollars. The Harvard Business School’s Professor Michael Beer calls this loss “the great training robbery.”

The crisis has reached such monumental proportions because of the basic and fundamental conceptual blunders of ‘wise and expert thinkers’. They ignored the radical change in the environment and the fact that futuristic, visionary, charismatic and transformational types of leaders cannot be trained, developed, made, created, shaped, moulded or ‘minted’. It is true that such leaders are not born. They are the ones who get fired up by their own, all-consuming passions, are ready to leave their comfort zones, take risks and make sacrifices to ‘BECOME’  EFFECTIVE LEADERS. 

They would, no doubt, need a supportive environment to thrive. The specifics of that will be covered in the next part.

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It is now common knowledge that the shortage of effective leaders is alarming. Most corporations admit that visionary effective leaders are very scarce. This is supported by the startling facts that (i) some well-established leading businessmen invest in start-ups of outside newcomers instead of encouraging innovation and promoting intrapreneurs in their own companies, and (ii) the astonishing start-up failure rate of 82%. 

There are a large number of talented persons who are technologically savvy, but lack leadership. An example of this is the astoundingly candid confession of Uber’s founder, Travis  Kalanick,  that he “needed some help for leadership development”. He had to quit the Chairmanship of the company he founded.

Let’s all brainstorm and attempt to find new and effective ways to solve the puzzle. There is an urgent need for a large, new leadership pool to help companies to thrive in an environment that is changing so fast that reality is jumping ahead of fantasy.  A genius, after years of research, thinks that he has a miraculous offering with tremendous potential. It’s highly likely that he may wake up the next morning and see someone else’s advertisement promoting a similar product. As all great minds think alike, the race is thrilling with a constant shuffle in the ranking of Fortune 500 companies and that of the unicorns.

It would be unfair and unjust to blame only training and development organizations for such a colossal failure. Corporates are equally accountable. It is the primary responsibility of the companies to ensure that candidates chosen for training programmes have latent leadership capabilities and potential for growth. The efficacy of the programmes, i.e. the extent of transfer of learning to the workplace, also depends on the facilities and freedom for experimentation and innovation. There are also some prerequisites for the successful application of learning. There must be an understanding in the organization that failures are implicit in innovation projects. The fear of failure in terms of ‘loss of face’ or punishments would deter many from attempting to try out the ideas and lessons learnt in training programmes.

Leads for ‘Easing’ a Complex Leadership Crisis

 

We are saying ‘leads’ for ‘easing’ and not ‘resolving’ the leadership crisis. Because there cannot be clear-cut formulae or even ready-to-implement solutions for such a monumental crisis. As we said earlier, this is because of the basic and fundamental conceptual blunders of the ‘wise and expert thinkers’.

They ignored the following stark realities. 

1. The environment has changed radically and evolves rapidly from day to day 

2. Historical data and concepts are no longer valid

3. The days and ways of leaders like ‘Neutron Jack’, the  ‘drivers and pushers’ of men are no longer valid 

4. Now only visionary, versatile, empathetic, comradely, charismatic and transformational leaders can be effective 

5. Such  leaders cannot be trained, developed, made, created, shaped, moulded or ‘minted’

6. Only those who can get fired up by their own, all-consuming passions, are ready to leave their comfort zones and make sacrifices will  ’BECOME' leaders.

    

Note: The specific leads for easing the crisis will be discussed in Part II in the next blog post.