Leadership Training Everywhere - But Not a Drop to Drink

• 142,000,000 - the number of listings on google when searching for leadership.
• 33,500,000 - the number of listings on google when searching for leadership training.
• 21,300,000 - the number of listings on google when searching for leadership training courses
• 13,100,000 - the number of listings on google when searching for leadership consulting firms
• 1,600,000 - the number of listings on google when searching for leadership consultants

For context - searching pornography only returns 11,600,000 hits (that may be a function of the audience not being able to spell such a long word since "sex" gives you 365,000,000 hits.)

Why are those statistics interesting?  Here's why.

Having a wonderful lunch with a friend and former client yesterday we talked about the top problems companies face and the topic of leadership came up.  We puzzled about the sheer number of consulting firms that offer leadership training, the number of blogs and articles on leadership, and the focus most companies put on leadership.  My friend's experience indicated that poor leadership seemed to be a root cause of a lot of the other problems typically encountered at a company (I'm paraphrasing a bit - after all it was an hour-long lunch.)  

But even with all that focus on leadership - we still have the problem.

We ended with this question...

Why, with so many resources and what seems to be a big concern of most companies - is leadership still such a huge issue?  Why hasn't this either been solved or at least been moved down the list of problems companies face?  

Why can't we seem to get leadership right?

Here's where we netted out...

• Companies identify leadership as a problem.
• Companies hire people or buy programs to address leadership.
• People go through the process of "learning leadership."
• People go back into organizations and are measured on the EXACT SAME THINGS they were measured on BEFORE training on leadership.  

In other words, we don't measure leadership - we measure everything else.  Profits, losses, costs, quality, errors, etc. 

Here's some homework for you all.

Do we need new metrics for managers that have more to do with people and less to do with the output those people are responsible for?

Examples I came up with...

• Voluntary turnover to go to a lesser or same type job at another company/department (lower is better)
• Voluntary turnover to higher level jobs outside the company (in other words there wasn't a job open or that could be created for that person in the existing company.) (higher is better)
• Voluntary turnover to start own business (higher is better)
• Number of employees promoted OUT of a department to new, greater responsibility jobs WITHIN the company (higher is better)
• Level of recognition by other employees, departments, managers for the work of direct reports (this would mean you have to have a recognition program that is trackable - something you should do whether you end up using the data or not - but you should.) (higher is better)

What metrics should we be looking at the would indicate somone is a good leader?  

What proof is there that the money spent on leadership training is money well-spent?  

I believe that until we create new metrics for managers we will constantly have the need to train on leadership.

Anyone care to weigh in?  Anyone, anyone?

Comments

[Phil Wylie]

New metrics alone won't ever eliminate the need for leadership training. One of the challenges of leadership development is that leadership is different from organization to organization. What makes for a good leader at GE doesn't match what makes a good leader at Google. To truly make an impact on results, companies have to spend the time to define leadership competencies that align with the values, culture and desired business outcomes. Once those competencies are defined- appropriate metrics can be set. It could be internal promotions, if one of your competencies is around developing your employees. It could be based on alignment of employees' goals to overall goals, if one of your competencies is around communicating strategy. Point is, it would be difficult to define one set of metrics that would work for all leadership. Because of the complexity and uniqueness of leadership at each individual organization, you see all the thousands of different approaches, consultants and theories.
Most interesting nowadays is model of distributed leadership- where we move away from the traditional hiearchy towards the nextworked collaborative models, and through in global teams- lots more complexity being layered onto to leadership models.

[Bret Simmons]

Paul, I love what you are saying here and am glad YOU are saying it :) I think a BIG part of the problem is companies and the leaders in them just want to be spoon fed and there is NO shortage of conslutants out there willing to sell them what they think they need. We need people what really want to understand *why* people behave the way they do and why things work. When you understand why, you can create your own solutions and a unique future for yourself and your employees. Unless and until leaders grapple with the why, the best they can ever do it copy the past and hope for the best.

[martyjordan@hccpartners.com]

I totally agree with your premise of measuring leadership. Another good metric is degree of employee engagement per leader (summary measure isn't as meaningful). There are a number of engagement factors that get measured that can be directly attributed to both the employee's direct boss as well as senior leadership at higher levels.

Cheers!

Marty Jordan
Human Capital Consulting Partners
www.hccpartners.com

[Ali Ahmadian]

I have taken leadership classes at my company. I don't currently hold a leadership position at my company; so I have taken these classes with people who are inspired to hold a leadership positions and mainly with people who already hold leadership positions.

In one of my classes, I raised the question on why managers do not get evaluated by their direct reports. The instructor and most of the people in the class looked at me like I was not getting enough blood circulation in my brain.

I don't think it's enough for managers, especially managers who deal with people, to only get evaluated by their managers and superiors. The reason these managers are even in place is because their managers are too busy in the first place. In my perfect world, every manager would get evaluated by their direct report and THEN they will get evaluated by their superiors based on how much improvement they have made according to their employees' feedback as well as the final output they provided for the company as a whole.

I think it would have taken more than an hour if you and I discussed leadership over lunch. Sorry about the long comment!

[Scott Crandall]

Paul --- Wonderful post. Your friend at lunch sounds brilliant! Who paid?

Seriously, I'm looking forward to the input from your readers.

[Eva]

I'm going to take the opposite, more positive side of the data points you present. Leadership being the #1 problem is a good thing! I hope it stays that way.

Companies should seek to constantly train on leadership, and treat it as an ongoing process. After all, there is not a final, end state of "perfect leader" - leaders can always be better.

[Scott Crandall]

Paul --- Seriously, excellent post. I'm interested to see what your usual posters have to say. To repeat what I told my daughter recently: "Enjoy those times when you have a good boss, because bad bosses are the norm."
However you define good and bad bosses -- and that might be an interesting discussion as well. And it certainly makes AMP less than a "gimme" too, doesn't it?

Does that square with the consensus? If so, why?

[Paul Hebert]

I couldn't agree more - each company has a culture and a personality which should inform their leadership style. But the fact that there is so much emphasis on leadership - all the time - that it would seem to me that little progress in teaching and internalizing leadership skills is being made.

[Paul Hebert]

You know I love to look at the "why" part of the human behavior equation. But it still makes me wonder if we either aren't teaching/communicating what leadership is - or it's just another check box on the list and we really only want to pay lip service to it. So much of what I see at companies related to performance is leaders not understanding what makes people tick and reinforcing that I just wonder if we need to measure different things in order to reinforce the training.

[Paul Hebert]

Engagement is the buzzword of the day. I agree with it conceptually - but I don't have a great definition yet. Seems that everyone who has a survey has a different definition. However, I do believe that engagement (by whatever definition) is key to performance - and a leaders job is to get people engaged or get them out.

[Paul Hebert]

Appreciate the input - and you're right. There are many companies that don't take into consideration the employee point of view. There are many though that do 360 degree reviews from the supervised employees. My experience though - not very honest or truthful for fear or reprisal. Not to say it shouldn't be done just that we need to be cognizant of the fact the info may not be accurate.

I will say this - if you're concerned about how your employees would rate you as a manager - that's a great first step on being a good manager. But remember - not a popularity contest. Sometimes being a good manager is being a tough manager and that may show up in the survey!

[Paul Hebert]

The kicker Scott - the wallet was in the side pocket in the car - I had it the whole time. :)

[Paul Hebert]

I get that - but my concern is that it would seem we're not doing enough to "raise" leaders through our leaders. In other words, our those responsible for the next generation of leaders doing their job - or simply taking the classes and doing the same things they did before (mostly because that's what they are measured on?)

We need to instill cultural changes and systemic changes in how we raise good leaders in a company.

[Paul Hebert]

I think it takes a good leader to implement the AMP (autonomy, master, purpose) process of getting people involved and motivated because there are less "rules" and therefore you have to rely on leadership skills more than just the rules.

[Recruiting Animal]

QUOTE:
"Having a wonderful lunch with a friend and former client yesterday we talked about the top problems companies face and the topic of leadership came up. We puzzled about the sheer number of consulting firms that offer leadership training, the number of blogs and articles on leadership, and the focus most companies put on leadership. My friend's experience indicated that poor leadership seemed to be a root cause of a lot of the other problems typically encountered at a company (I'm paraphrasing a bit - after all it was an hour-long lunch.)
But even with all that focus on leadership - we still have the problem.
We ended with this question..."
---------------------------------------------

This long paragraph adds nothing to your article.

THIS IS PLENTY:

With so much information about leadership available, why is it still a big issue?

[Paul Hebert]

Why thank you for the editing. That added so much to the conversation about the topic presented.

[Eric Means]

Paul,
I think a lot of leaders just want to please their boss and fit in. A lot of the leadership training is forgotten and they just want to rise up in a culture that may not have good leaders. A lot of managers get on a power trip and don't think about being a good leader, they just care if they look good to the guy above them. These are scenarios where leaders mistreat employees to get what they want out of them, numbers. Working them hard and treating them like they don't matter, then blowing up when one thing goes wrong. I liked this article a lot, and I couldn't agree more that we have so many resources on leadership and yet it seems like the leaders haven't learned at all.

[Paul Hebert]

Thanks Eric for the comment. If the bosses took the training seriously the problem you mention would slowly expire. But the top guys think they are above the training and therefore, all the training below them is wasted (IMHO).

Until the top managers take this seriously nothing will change unfortunately.

[Scott Waters]

Paul,

I agree with your argument. It seems that at many workplaces, including my own, there are plenty of ways to measure performance based on profit and the bottom line, but not enough to measure how a manager interacts with their employees and their peers. Have you read anything about standout companies that might do things differently? I'm curious how companies that are commonly thought of as "employee-oriented" deal with mid-level management metrics (perhaps Google for instance).

[Paul Hebert]

Scott - thanks for the comment. I know that many companies do look at retention - and they look at annual surveys for satisfaction and engagement - when assessing manager performance. But those are once a year measures. I don't have any specifics on companies such as google (or any of the new exemplars such as zappos.)

Great question - any other readers out there know how the "best" do it?

[Fran Melmed]

help me out here, paul. why is it better to have more of your employees leave to start their own business than to employ their initiative in your company?

another metric that i think says a lot is how many people say they understand the business strategy, they know where they fit in, they say they have the skills and training to do the job required, and they feel valued for doing it.

f

[Paul Hebert]

My point was that if you can't find a place for them to perform to their potential within your company - and they are growing and learning and being a leader - I'd rather have them leave than slog on in the company. My goal as a good manager is to give people the ability to be the best they can be - not just be the best they can be at my company.

It will come back to you - karma baby, karma.

[Fran Melmed]

ah, cheers. that's hard to measure, but i completely agree w/the approach. would love to see more companies find ways to let people have free rein to bring their great ideas and ambitions to fruition w/in the org.

f

[Paul Hebert]

until we reward managers for it - it won't happen. Business (and people) don't like change, unfortunately.

[ecartlidge]

You are correct we need to measure leadership using metrics other than financial ones. Your suggestion to measure turn over is more of the same thing companies have been doing forever. Based on your examples you are measuring good turn over which is a start but what about other leadership qualities? How do leaders rate on other leadership qualities? Treatment of employees? Do manaagers treat all employees with respect regardless of their differences? Do managers create an environment that incents employees to do their best or go beyond their basic job responsibilites? Do they trust their manager? Do managers sincerely care about employees and their family? While these questions may seem like simple questions, these are strong leadership qualites.
You need to define the skills that make a good leader and measure them often!