LGT Private Banking

Nina Kreyer

Career Pathways Advisor

‘Leadership and Learning are indispensable to each other.’ This quote by John F. Kennedy lives on as a reminder of the need for leaders to constantly evolve – as does leadership development.

And, to evolve, reflecting on past experiences might be a good start. Below, we have, based on our experience, identified three ‘truths’ that we believe make leadership development more impactful.

True alternatives to leadership careers are essential.

Many people find themselves in leadership careers simply due to a lack of other options when wanting to progress. Appreciating diverse capability- and strength sets and catering to different ambitions and life stages, many companies are increasingly exploring more fluid, ‘squiggly’ careers that provide more flexibility to move up, side- or downwards between various roles and functions at different speeds.

While many variations exist, a typical distinction is between ‘technical’ or ‘expert’ and ‘leadership’ careers. The narrative is that some people enjoy and thus excel in deeply technical domains without necessarily having the desire (or skill) to lead others.

Yet, simply introducing ‘expert careers’ will not solve the problem of promoting people to the wrong roles. Often, technical careers are seen as ‘second best’ for those who ‘didn’t make it’ – but are too essential to lose and thus are offered a technical career path as a ‘consolation price’ rather than it being an equally attractive alternative. And they tend to ignore that in an even more complex and ambiguous world, outstanding lateral leadership abilities are also essential for technical experts to succeed.

In our experience, if you want people who are in (people) leadership roles for the right reasons (which isn’t money or status), make sure you communicate the different options transparently and honestly. It might not be right or appropriate for your company to ‘equalise’ grades and salaries across different career paths or offer the same to everyone. It is perfectly legitimate to differentiate – yet make sure the consequences of different career choices are transparent, clear, and understood. And ideally, support your people in making the right choices for them and the business. For example, by providing development coaching and career advice – ideally from role models and leaders they respect.

Leadership needs to be learned.

In many organisations, the belief that you can just promote someone into a leadership role without qualifying them, still has traction. The rationale often being that ‘they have seen other leaders, are smart and will figure it out.’ And while there is a lot to be said about learning on the job, in few other professions we would be prepared to take such risks, keep our fingers crossed, and hope for the best. Or would you fly with ‘Learning-by-doing-Air’ or visit a learning-by-doing dentist?

While some people are lucky enough to be ‘born leaders’, most of us are not. And frankly, the risks of getting it wrong are too high - and well documented: think unwanted attrition, poor culture, low performance, and ultimately business failure.

"Leadership is not a ‘soft’ skill but an essential business capability to be learned – and it won’t happen by chance."

One reason why leadership development doesn’t get the attention and support it should, often is a poor appreciation and understanding of the impact it has. Leadership development is then seen as a nice-to-have, needs to ‘entertain’ and can be deferred when the ‘real’ job is more important.

Our recommendation to leadership development professionals is to always be clear on what you are looking to achieve before you start, have concrete KPIs and measures – co-created with your stakeholders – and show proof that it makes a difference. Leadership is not a ‘soft’ skill but an essential business capability to be learned – and it won’t happen by chance.

One size fits all fits no one.

Unsurprisingly, leaders (like all humans) are heterogeneous: they have different (social, academic, personal, professional, and cultural) backgrounds and work across a diverse range of settings, challenges, and people. So why do we keep designing (globally) standardised leadership development programmes? Of course, they are easier (for HR) to manage. Also, these programmes can help mark the transition to a new role and responsibility. Because there are common topics relevant to all leaders in a company which can be better delivered and experienced together. However, if we focus only on developing ‘one size fits all’ leadership development interventions without taking the individual needs and strengths of leaders into account, sustainable impact is usually limited.

As an example - at LGT we provide ‘Shaping Culture: a menu for LGT leaders’. The menu is explicitly designed to offer each leader a range of personal development options to enhance their leadership skills and at the same time help (them) contribute to and enhance our culture. Clustered into three categories - ‘learning on my own’, ‘learning with other leaders’ and ‘learning with my team’ - each leader can on an annual basis choose an item which is right for them then, for example based on career aspirations, feedback received, or personal curiosity. In addition to more ‘traditional’ learning formats, menu options for example also include unlimited and confidential access to a personal leadership coach (‘learning on my own’), a ‘book club’ with peers (‘learning with other leaders’) or experiential learning in martial arts (‘learning with my team’). For all menu items, the learning setting is designed to make it straightforward to transfer theories, experience, and knowledge into real-world situations and is linked to LGT’s strategic and cultural priorities, thus further increasing impact.

Linked to moving away from ‘one size fits all’ interventions, we also encourage being ‘brave’ and innovative when it comes to leadership development. Don’t ask what Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, or your companies’ closest competitors do (and then try and copy it) but trust your expertise and that of the people around you. Make leadership development ‘fit’ for the people and company you serve – and take it as a compliment when others then want to copy your approach ;-)

Going new ways 

While getting leadership development ‘right’ is essential, at the same time it is more challenging than ever. Impactful, agile leadership development that naturally and flexibly aligns to business strategy seems to work best leveraging an iterative, incremental approach, co-created with stakeholders and working through a series of experiments, prototypes and adaptations. We hope that our thoughts and experience inspire you to boldly try new ways of making an impact.