In our post-pandemic world, how are companies training their future leaders?

It's a critical question as companies struggle with continuing labor shortages, inflationary cost increases, shifting consumer demand and long term climate change.  Too often today, managers are elevated to increasing levels of responsibility without a plan for their development.  On the job training (OJT) is the default plan to gain leadership skills.  Unfortunately, newly promoted leaders stumble along, unclear on how to engage and motivate their direct reports.  Meanwhile, employees impatient with poor leadership exit for greener pastures. 

Great leadership is no longer a "nice to have" competency, it's a "need to have" competency.

Company reorganizations are never pleasant.  The managers who need to communicate with affected employees feel anxious about the pending communication. Rumor mills within the company start churning as employee’s whisper about who will be terminated and when the day of reckoning will occur.  In my experience, there is usually a sense of dread hidden just under the surface of daily activity across the organization.

I recently met with a group of undergraduate students from the Peter Paul Business School at the University of New Hampshire and one student asked me for a list of my favorite business books.  I’ve read a lot of business books in my life but never put together a list of my top ten.  I thought it would be interesting to narrow down my list of favorites.  In no particular order of priority, here are my top ten:

I am convinced that the more acronyms a company utilizes, the greater the signal of impending doom.  It slowly sneaks into the corporate nomenclature until one day, someone joins your company, and bravely asks "What the hell does the LLT stand for?"

“Unfortunately, we will miss our financial targets this year." These words are among the most difficult words any executive will utter during his or her tenure.  No executive wants to face the CEO or Board and admit missing the plan.  I used to have a coffee mug on my desk with the famous quote from Apollo 13 Mission Control, “Failure is not an option” as a reminder to myself and anyone dropping by my office that missing plan was unacceptable.

Every leader knows how important it is to seek feedback regularly from employees about underlying issues or problems.  Without feedback, you won’t be able to help clear obstacles that allow your teams to succeed.  However, not every leader knows that you need a reality translator during feedback sessions.  While every organization has certain individuals willing to be candid, it is not the norm.  The norm is to make you, the leader, feel good.

My youngest son had his test for his driver's license yesterday.  I was fortunately able to take him to the DMV for his exam.  As we headed over, he started worrying slightly because it uncharacteristically started raining here in California and he had never driven in the rain.   He asked me what he should do differently and I mentioned some of the basics - insuring windshield wipers are at the right cadence, lights are on, defroster on to eliminate any humidity build-up, allowing some extra distance in braking, etc...