As I write I am putting the finishing touches to my newsletter, with its main article Leadership: more than skin deep. I wrote about this article yesterday on my blog.

It occurs to me to offer some questions for readers who are taking a whole organisation view of leadership development – you are the CEOs and HR Directors of the corporate world. These questions reflect beliefs which I share below:

• The quality of leadership in your organisation is critical to its success. To what extent do you have clear and concrete aspirations for leadership in your organisation? To what extent do you understand the values, beliefs, thoughts and behaviours that characterise your desired approach to leadership?
• It makes sense to invest in approaches to leadership which have been proven elsewhere. To what extent have your aspirations been tested against leadership research? Have you, for example, reviewed leadership research findings so that you can reliably predict the outcomes from your chosen approach? Have you conducted research in your own organisation to determine what leads to success?
• Effective approaches to leadership development take account of where you are starting from. What investment have you made in assessing the size and nature of the gap(s) between your current and desired leadership approach? How do your resource commitments (time, money etc.) stack up against your findings?
• A well-planned leadership development approach recognises that the quality of leadership in your organisation reflects multiple inputs, including organisational and job design, leadership recruitment, performance management and training and development. To what extent do your plans for leadership development reflect all the areas that contribute to leadership effectiveness? To what extent do your plans reflect a true understanding of where your organisation is starting from and what initiatives will best support your progress?
• Learning to lead is deeply personal, requiring a willingness on the part of the individual to reflect on his or her practice, to gain new insights and to adjust his or her approach. This learning can stimulate deep emotions and leave leaders feeling deeply vulnerable. To what extent have you taken account of the nature of learning in designing approaches to leadership development? To what extent does your organisational culture and climate support leaders in their learning?
• Leadership development requires skilled partners. How are you choosing your partners (recruitment consultants, trainers, consultants etc.) as an organisation to support you in making progress towards your aspirations as an organisation? How are you assessing their ‘fit’ to the values, beliefs, thoughts and behaviours to which you aspire? To what extent does your way of working with them reflect and embody your deepest aspirations as an organisation?

What questions would you add? And if you would like to learn more about how I work with client organisations to support their leadership development, please go to my website at http://www.learningforlifeconsulting.co.uk/ or contact me directly (at dorothy@learningforlifeconsulting.co.uk) to arrange to meet.