How to Find and Nurture True Leaders
Why is it still such a common practice to give leadership roles to people who are not ready for the position and accompanying responsibilities? With hindsight, in light of the eventual and inevitable failure of such individuals, many hiring leaders often opt to repeat this error. But consider what happens when you give authority and accountability to someone who does not have a comprehensive understanding of what a leadership role actually means. It is very likely that the probability remains significantly high that the person will not be able to handle the authority and will eventually cause collateral damage to many people, your productivity, and your bottom line.
That said, there is a critical need for CEOs to understand the link between weak leadership and its true cost to all stakeholders — the management team, employee base, shareholders, clients, and customers. Part of the problem involves where corporations spend money — often, unfortunately, on human resources programmes that do little or nothing to further the development of the individual employee. Without such forward movement, innovativeness and creativity stagnate, causing a drag on the quality and reliability of the company’s growth potential. Another source of unwise spending is recruiting, hiring, and training employees who do not “fit” with the values or do not have the requisite talent — especially when it comes to the dilemmas presented by mergers and acquisitions, a clear situation where values and missions are likely to clash.
Truly Committed Leadership
Leaders appear at all levels of the organisation: senior staff, team leaders, unit supervisors, department heads, division heads, subsidiary presidents, and executives, right up to the CEO. To make the most use of valuable leadership talent, and ensure management succession and organisational continuity, consider the following pointers when you hire people for leadership roles.
- Make sure that the employees who are given the leadership roles have an excellent track record of driving people behind them and not pushing people below them. Nobody can be called a true leader if the person is solely using authority to make things happen —…
