A recent report reveals that many organizations lack candidates who are “ready now” for promotion to leadership roles.

The report titled “Succession Matters: Impactful Leadership Development and Accelerated Readiness”, is third in the series of a global study commissioned by executive recruitment and management group Korn Ferry and performed by Hanover Research.

Approximately 50% of the respondents said that their organization lacks a concrete channel for developing and delivering “ready now” candidates to fill leadership positions.

Many companies thus resort to recruiting instead of promoting when a leadership position needs to be filled. In fact, “43% of C-suite positions are filled from the outside.” – Korn Ferry Study

SOME OF THE CAUSES IDENTIFIED

1. Nonspecific Development: Many organizations do not focus on the unique development of employees with relation to their goals and potential leadership duties and challenges.

“Oftentimes, leaders spend a good part of their careers participating in standard development programs that aren’t customized to their specific needs, which significantly hinders the fulfilment of their true potential being reached.” – Korn Ferry Study

2. Lack of Adequate and Personalized Experience Opportunities:Experience remains the best way to learn, yet most organizations do not provide enough experience and development opportunities. Worse yet, the opportunities provided follow a general standard that has no real emphasis on building up a particular employee so he can take on a leadership role.

HOW TO ENSURE A STEADY SUPPLY OF “READY NOW” EMPLOYEES

1. Start Development Early in An Employee’s Career: From the very onset, an employee’s career should have a defined growth path. Employees should be exposed to challenging experiences right from the beginning so their aptitude for decision making can be identified.

“With careful planning much earlier on in a person’s career, organizations can ensure that leaders gain the experiences that truly matter for future success at advanced levels,” stresses Stu Crandell, Senior Vice President of Global Offerings at Korn Ferry and the Korn Ferry Institute.

2. Make Development and Experience Opportunities Unique to The Skills and Goals of Each Employee: Once an employee’s skills and experience have been identified and recorded, development plans need to be designed around them and in relation to their leadership goals.

3. Use a Skills Tracking and Goal Management System: The first two steps may lack structure and direction if there is no way to track the skills and experience of each unique employee.

A skill tracking system stores a current list of an employee’s proficiencies and experience. If this system also incorporates goal management, weaving skills and experience into the development process becomes a simple task.

“Your decisions will only be as strong as your data.” – Korn Ferry

Study Once gaps have been identified, you can then add the employee to scheduled trainings to bridge these gaps, using our training module.

Adapted from Mesheal Fegor- Skills Pro