CMI discovered that 82% of managers and leaders – a quarter of whom are senior business leaders – have no formal management or leadership training. Meanwhile, employees, faced with an increasingly uncertain and turbulent world of work, now want more human support from their leaders – with empathy and emotional intelligence high on the agenda.
Whether they’ve been promoted because of their technical ability, or because an organisational restructure has necessitated a change of role, if a leaders’ people management skills haven’t been properly considered, they can quickly begin to feel out of their depth – particularly given 90% of HR professionals say the human aspects of leadership are essential to success.
Unfortunately, despite leaders doing their best to juggle the evolving demands placed on their shoulders, our latest survey of 1,000+ HR professionals found that 1 in 3 believe their leaders’ biggest skill gaps lie in their capacity for this human-centred approach – falling short in their interpersonal capabilities. And as a result, 1 in 2 respondents predict a shortfall of leaders within the next five years.
So, how do businesses ensure their leadership population is ready to succeed not only today, but in the future as well?
Assess to generate insights at an individual, and organisational level
The first step is for an organisation to decide exactly how they want their leaders to lead – confirming the capabilities, behaviours, personal attributes and mindset they deem essential to achieving both commercial and cultural success. This will then enable the creation of comprehensive success profiles for each level of leadership within a business – providing a foundation against which to assess existing leaders.
“Leader success profiles do matter, and for them to make sense, L&D need to keep the end in mind, focusing either on potential or effectiveness.”
- Jacques Quinio, Talent Management Solutions Director, Right Management at CIPD Festival of Work 2024
Once a business has total clarity on what they believe to be important in their leaders (including those all-important human-centred qualities), they can take a highly targeted approach to their assessment initiatives – utilising whichever assessment methods are best suited to their unique context and needs. This will then generate reliable data on their leaders and inform purposeful development plans.
At an individual level, assessment enhances self-awareness, providing leaders with improved insight into their strengths, weaknesses and the way in which they lead. Understanding how they impact others, what they’re good at and where they could improve, will enable them to take a more proactive approach to their own professional development. They’ll then be far better positioned to contribute meaningfully to organisational growth, align their career trajectory and strengths with the evolving business needs, and fulfil their individual potential – 1 in 5 leaders say they wouldn’t be the leader they are today if not for development support.
Meanwhile, as an organisation that wants to ensure it has all the right people operating in the right way to drive success, assessment is a powerful way of generating crucial talent insights, which when leveraged correctly, allow companies to:
- Facilitate more effective workforce planning
- Invest in the right talent
- Target development budgets.
For an organisation to succeed, there needs to be a strong sense of alignment between the business and its people, particularly its leaders; and when organisations utilise assessment to understand and empower their leaders to grow on an ongoing basis, both parties thrive.
“Organisations perform better when they understand their people, and people perform better when they are understood.”
- Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, Chief Innovation Officer, ManpowerGroup
Leadership assessment in action
For such assessment initiatives to work, organisations must:
- Understand what they’re assessing
- Choose the correct assessment methods
- Communicate with the leaders about the purpose of the assessment
- Be willing to invest in the development of their workforce
An example of best practice in following this process is when a large insurance company partnered with Right Management to create a leadership assessment process that would help assess the capabilities and attributes of their existing and future leaders.
Having first identified the leadership ingredients required for future success at a senior level, we worked in partnership to create a success profile that provided a clear and shared understanding of ‘what great leadership looked like’ within their business. An assessment process was then designed around their unique success profile.
Over 120 leadership assessments were undertaken to generate an understanding of the strengths and development areas of their senior leadership population. These powerful insights resulted in targeted development initiatives, along with multiple key senior leader promotions being made over the course of 5 years.
When assessment is used in this way, businesses can acquire a consolidated view of their leadership population – understanding the talent present within the business, compared with the talent needed for the future. It can uncover critical skills gaps, allowing them to provide focused development initiatives and enabling more informed workforce development decisions.
To find out more about how assessment can act as a core component of a leadership framework, and empower the ongoing development of leaders, read our latest report on human leadership.
