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The Working Supervisor's Support Kit is a collection of information and tools to help working supervisors do a better job. It's based on what Wally's learned in over twenty years of supervisory skills training.

For weekly tips and resources pointers, check Wally's Three Star Leadership Letter

Find out more about having Wally speak to your company or convention.

Find out more about Wally's coaching services.

Finding the leaders we need for the future is supposed to be what's keeping CEOs up at night. It's no wonder we're having problems since most of our leadership development programs effectively ignore what we know about leadership development.

We should select people with potential and desire to succeed at the specific work of leadership, but we don’t. We promote people to leadership positions based on the fact that they're good at something else.

Maybe they got good grades in college and we hired them right into a leadership position. Maybe we promote them because they're good salespeople or lathe operators or planners. Whatever it is, we don't promote them based on identifying the abilities and talents we know leaders need in order to succeed.

To make matters worse, in many companies, being a boss is the only road to preferment, pay and promotion. So we tempt many who wouldn't otherwise want to do the hard and specific work of leadership to go for it. Then we often make it impossible to go back.

We should give the people we put into leadership positions some training in basic supervisory skills, but we don't. Most of the time there's no training at all. In other cases, the training is about how to fill out forms, administrivia, and prophylactic HR stuff.

It's worse than sink or swim. If a new leader sinks, he or she takes the entire team to the bottom.

We should give the people we promote special support during their transition period, but we don't. We figure it's not big deal, but my research shows that the transition from individual contributor to management is one of the most difficult there is.

It takes a year to a year and a half before a new boss is comfortable in the role. During that time the new leader is developing habits. Support during the transition could make sure that they develop the right ones. With no support, we leave things to chance.

We should provide on-the-job support to help leaders learn from each other, but we don't. Leadership is an apprenticeship trade. If leaders are going to learn on the job we need to help them learn well and quickly.

We should offer permanent and temporary development assignments to help leaders develop, but we don't. We should be choosing assignments with an eye on development. That's finding jobs to fit the people instead of the other way around.

We should hold leaders accountable for their leadership in three dimensions, mission, people and values, but we don't. In most companies leaders are only responsible for accomplishing the mission. In a few companies they're also responsible for getting the job done according to company values. Very few companies also hold leaders accountable for protecting and developing their people.

We should help all of our leaders develop, but we don't. The emphasis today is on "high potential leaders." They're important, but the first-line supervisors and middle managers are the ones who affect whether the day-to-day work of the business gets done and done well. They're the ones who make the major impact on morale. They need to develop, too, even if they don't ever want to be CEO.

Nothing here is rocket science. It's all based on what we've learned over the last fifty years about leadership development. We're just not doing it.

Maybe when those CEOs are up at night, they could start blocking out plans to change leadership development at their companies. After all it's not a strategic planning that prepares your company for an uncertain future, it's quality leaders who can deal with whatever comes.

Wally's Working Supervisor's Support Kit is a collection of information and tools to help working supervisors do a better job. It's based on what Wally's learned in over twenty years of supervisory skills training. Click here to check it out.

Request your free copy of "Meeting the Challenges of the Boomer Brain Drain: An integrated approach."

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.

Click here to find out more about Wally's coaching services.

For weekly tips and resources pointers, check our Wally Bock's Three Star Leadership Letter.

Click here to find out more about having Wally speak to your company or convention.