Leadership development learning accelerators: voices from the trenches

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to highlight the practices that high-performance leaders believed were influential for accelerating their development as leaders. Design/methodology/approach: The sample consisted of US based, mid-level leaders at Fortune 1000 companies who were identified by their organizations as being “high performers possessing the strong ability to deliver desired results for their enterprises.” The authors recently conducted focus groups with a subset of over 200 of these high-performing leaders and asked them to answer the following question: “Please identify what you would consider to be the five (5) most influential factors that accelerated your development as a leader.” Leaders were then randomly assigned to five-person focus groups to discuss their individual responses and come to consensus on what they considered to be the top leadership development “accelerators.” A content analysis of over 20 focus groups’ response sets allowed us to identify a list of top leadership development “accelerators”. Findings: Seven leadership accelerators were identified: working for a great leader; experiencing an extremely challenging assignment or major organizational change; working in an organization that requires and supports skill development; possessing a strong mentor/accountability partner; ongoing personal reflection and self-assessment; experiencing a significant failure or career setback; and formal leadership development training/continuing education. Research limitations/implications: It is important that leaders, HR professionals, and talent managers know and understand these factors and to make it an ongoing priority to systematically address the key questions that emerged from these findings. Practical implications: Leaders should thoughtfully answer the questions presented for themselves and encourage leaders in their organization to do the same. Originality/value: This paper, using primary data from “high-performance” leaders, identifies and explains seven important leadership development accelerators.