The Business Intelligence Network has an excellent article by Rich Petro and Art Petty titled "The Looming Leadership Talent Wars and What Organizations Need to Do to Secure Their Future." Here's what they say the article is about.

"Those organizations that focus on creating a culture where leadership development is a strategic imperative will be the winners in the important battle for brains and experience."

That may sound like any number of articles on the "war for talent" or the "leadership shortage," but this one is really different. This article makes sense.

Read past the first part, which sounds like pretty much anyone else, until you get to the part labeled "Themes in the Current State of Leadership Development Practice." That's where you'll find the following.

"The identification and development of new, first-time leaders is often ad hoc with no formal structure or approach to improve success and weed out potentially poor choices. Additionally, early-career leaders often report a lack of mentoring and support during their start-up phase – a point in time where they clearly would benefit from appropriate support."

Wally's Comment: Most companies don't even have standards or a process for selecting first-time leaders. Most companies don't have a support system for the people they promote into management. US companies spend only about 7 percent of their training budgets on first line supervisors even though we know that those supervisors have the most powerful impact on productivity, morale, and retention.

"Formal career planning as a means of developing and retaining talent is not widely practiced."

Wally's Comment: It's not practiced except at companies that are known for great leadership over a long period of time.  Think GE or Proctor and Gamble.

"The general perception of early career professionals is that leadership is a means to an end or a normal part of 'climbing the ladder,' with little perspective on leadership as a distinct career choice."

Wally's Comment: Even though some companies, like 3M, have had dual-career ladders for decades, it's still not the norm. There needs to be a way for excellent individual contributors to achieve both increased income and prestige without taking on a job that they're neither interested in nor suited for.

This is the part of the article I got most excited about. That phrase "leadership as a distinct career choice" put in elegant words what many of us have said much less effectively.

"In many organizations, leadership development has not achieved a level of strategic significance."

Wally's Comment: Sad, but true.  Leadership development is a lot like sex among teenaged boys. Nobody's doing much. Everybody thinks others are doing more. And they're sure they'd feel really good if they could just do some.

Petro and Petty go on to make some solid recommendations about what to do. You can read them for yourself. I'll just highlight one of them.

"Identify those individuals that have potential and have a desire to move into more leadership roles."

Wally's Comment: Wouldn't that be great? Companies actually paying attention to the selection process for first-time managers? Gosh we might be able to get some people responsible for group performance who like the job and are good at it.  That would be good news indeed.

There's more good news. This article is only the first in a series.

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Wally Bock has helped people learn to be great bosses for more than a quarter century. His latest book, Performance Talk: The One-on-One Part of Leadership, makes learning key leadership principles almost effortless by teaching through a story and providing lists of resources for further growth.

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