Leadership Development Paradoxes

When organisations realise that the world is changing quicker than they are and accordingly they need to adapt as soon as possible, among other things, leadership development suddenly becomes very important. How can the organisation develop leaders as of “yesterday”? In ever fast-moving Asia this is question which is often proposed to the Human Capital Leadership Institute (HCLI) of Singapore. They performed research in order to try and answer this and their results are published in the HQ Asia, Redefining Business Leadership magazine, issue 3, 2012: “Five leadership paradoxes: Accelerating leadership development in Asia.”

Here’s a summary of those paradoxes followed by further considerations (“et alors”):

Leadership Development Paradoxes

From every perspective of trying to find ways to accelerate leadership development, HCLI found that there were in fact five key paradoxes:

To foster learning, emphasise doing

Leaders learn most from undertaking challenging experiences. This can be in the form of special projects, but the emphasis is on doing rather than education. Experience takes time!

To accelerate development, slow down

Learning is not as powerful without time to reflect on what has been learnt. Jumping from one assignment to the next without taking time to reflect will not accelerate leadership development.

To excel at the task, harness relationships

The main differentiator between top leaders and others is not intellectual ability but rather interpersonal ability. Relationships cannot be built overnight – long-term is the focus!

To achieve success, learn to fail

The key is to “fail young, fail cheap and never fail to learn.” At the team or organisational level, putting in place a culture of both tolerance of and learning from failure can take time!

To develop greatness, practice humility

Leadership development is not just a journey from “a” to “b”. The end point is constantly moving and evolves with time: great leaders have the humility to recognise that the journey is continual.

Et alors?

Whilst the research was performed in Asia, the above paradoxes could apply anywhere! There is no shortcut to developing leadership and “best practice” organisations accordingly target their leadership development in the medium to longer-term. The advice is also clear for the leaders of “tomorrow” who want to get “started” as soon as possible: it would be wise to take note of the points above and slow down, reflect, learn from failure, consolidate experience and relationships and above all be humble! oHow cnHOHH