2009 Experiential Leadership Development survey shows organisations are getting serious about developing leadership capability through experience in the workplace.

The latest Annual Experiential Leadership Development Survey conducted by expert and researcher Mark Jenner reveals a number of interesting findings about the emphasis organisations are placing on developing their people into leadership positions through personal development plans, internal assignments, and mentoring.

The survey dissects responses to detailed questions from representatives of 57 organisations of varying size and from different industry sectors. Questions they were asked to react to included:

  • Do you have a model or framework that sets out the capabilities required of a leader in your organisation?
  • Roughly what proportion of your leadership development activity is committed to experiential leadership development?
  • Which employee groups are targeted for experiential leadership development in your organisation?

Respondents' answers also reveal the approaches their organisations use to develop leadership from experience, which experiences are most effective in developing the capabilities in their leadership models, and which ambient conditions they feel are necessary for learning from experience to occur.

Read the questions and response statistics.

Read on for Mark Jenner's Executive Summary of his findings, and for tips on carrying out your own research on Workplace Leadership Development.

MJA Experiential Leadership Development Survey 2009

Introduction and Summary

This paper provides brief commentary on the results of this year's experiential leadership development survey.

The on-line survey was completed by 57 respondents representing organisations of varying size and industry background. The results suggest that organisations are putting more emphasis on experiential leadership development but find it hard to move beyond conventional practices because of practical and cultural obstacles to learning and reflection in the workplace.

Personal development plans continue to be the main vehicle for workplace learning, while the surge of interest in talent management has bolstered mentoring, stretch assignments, and willingness to move high potentials into developmental roles. But although respondents agree that jobs providing developmental stretch are most effective in developing leadership only a small number of organisations view job design as a way of generating more opportunities for individuals to lead. It is my contention that job design is the new frontier for workplace leadership development.

Analysis of the survey results and follow-up interviews with a sample of the respondents highlights six areas where extra insight would be helpful to leadership development professionals:

  • Stronger business case for the benefits of work-based leadership development
  • More leadership development 'products' that are easy to implement in the workplace, add demonstrable value, and do not appear to inhibit performance
  • Realistic strategies for shifting the culture to support work-based leadership development
  • Mapping more precisely the developmental properties of particular job experiences to desired leadership capabilities
  • Creation of processes to ensure individuals and their sponsors get the development they expect from a planned experience
  • Identifying non-work related key experiences essential to the development of 'rounded' leaders

What is the profile of survey respondents?

A small majority of the respondents were from private sector manufacturing and services (56%), with 36% coming from the public sector (including higher education) and 7% from the voluntary and not-for-profit sector. 63% of respondents say they have a model that defines the capabilities required of a leader in their organisation. With the exception of the education sector (where 35% of institutions possess a model) all other organisations with more than 1,000 employees report having a leadership model in place. Only 16% of respondents commit more than half of their activity to experiential leadership development. 70% devote less than 30% of their activity to experiential leadership development, although 55% plan to increase this proportion in the next 12 months.

What approaches do you use to develop leadership from experience?

By far the most popular intervention is personal development plans with 84% of respondents saying these are used widely in their organisation. This is followed by mentoring from experienced leaders (70%) and coaching from the individual's line manager (65%). Action learning projects inside the current job are used by almost half of respondents (47%). The least popular interventions are developmental projects outside the current job (21%), and the restructuring of job roles and goals to increase leadership stretch (23%).

The greatest variance between sectors is in the use of career paths . They are the third most popular approach in sectors with tall organisational structures like financial services, utilities (electricity, gas and water supply) and retail, but much less popular in professional services, education and healthcare.

What experience do you find most effective in developing the capabilities in your leadership model or framework?

The top five experiences considered most effective for developing leadership capabilities are (1) projects with a high degree of complexity, (2) managing a bigger operation, (3) managing a turnaround situation, (4) contact with senior managers, and (5) exposure to different business and/or functional perspectives.

In the education sector participation on cross-functional task forces is considered the most effective developmental experience, while in financial services it is projects with a high degree of complexity, in professional services managing a turnaround situation, and in the utilities sector a full- or part-time international assignment. We can see a possible connection between the nature of the industry and the value attached to a particular type of experience, which suggests that leadership models have been successfully contextualised.

Although social responsibility projects tended to score low on effectiveness one respondent commented that they favour "CSR projects and assignments so that the experiential learning impacts our communities, our people as well as our clients". We can speculate that the low priority reflects a view either that these projects are unhelpful or ineffective in developing ethical or responsible leadership, or that the development of ethical and responsible leadership is not a priority for organisations.

What process do you find most effective in developing the capabilities in your leadership model or framework?

The process regarded as most effective in supporting the development of leadership capability is jobs designed to provide developmental stretch, which is surprising because most respondents report that they are not using this approach. This highlights the experiential leadership development conundrum: we know that jobs are a potent source of leadership development but struggle to design them to maximise learning. In part the challenge is to resolve the perceived tension/polarity between workplace performance and employee development.

The second process considered most effective is the provision of a framework of support (coaching, orientation, etc) for individuals as they transition into new jobs, particularly at senior levels. 360-degree feedback was ranked third (some way ahead of 180-degree feedback), action learning fourth and facilitated opportunities for reflection fifth. Boss accountability for their reports' development plan and lists of developmental opportunities available within the current role were regarded as least effective.

There was a considerable degree of agreement across sectors about the most and least effective processes for experiential leadership development. The only sector conspicuously out of line was health and social care which put personal development planning and frameworks which help individuals capture the value of work-based learning at the top of their list.

What ambient conditions are necessary for learning from experience to occur?

Respondents were asked whether their organisational culture is favourable to experiential leadership development. Encouragingly, most reported a readiness to move high potentials into developmental roles or assignments, top leader commitment to learning from experience, and a willingness to delegate real responsibility and accountability. Respondents were much less positive about three conditions critical to effective experiential leadership development: time built into work for reflection and learning, tolerance for making mistakes, and support for developmental projects not core to the current job.

To compare the degree of cultural receptivity across sectors the total scores for each of the 13 items on this factor were averaged and compared. The sectors with the 'best' cultures for experiential leadership development appear (from this set of results at least) to be education and health/social care, and the worst the utilities sector. However, no sector achieved a score above 'to some extent', which suggests that organisational cultures in general are not especially favourable to workplace leadership development.


Conclusion: designing experiences for leadership development

This survey has found that many organisations are serious about structuring and supporting experience to develop leadership capability, particularly for their high potentials and senior managers. The focal point continues to be those tried and trusted processes like personal development planning, mentoring and coaching. But we also see a growing number of organisations defining and publishing career paths and experience maps, providing practical support for transitioning managers, and assigning developmental projects and roles to high potentials to round them out for their next big job.

These are significant strides forward and we hope to see organisations embark on the next wave of workplace leadership development by:

  • Increasing understanding of how certain experiences develop key leadership capabilities - and what conditions are necessary to increase the efficacy of those experiences
  • Designing jobs to encourage individuals to lead - leadership is the best form of leadership development
  • Aligning formal learning opportunities (courses, coaching, etc) to workplace challenges (as we have seen with job transitions)
  • Teaching people how to learn from their experience
  • Building space into all jobs for reflection and learning
  • Providing experiences which develop responsible leadership as well as performance leadership
  • Reinforcing and extending those processes which support learning from experience, like development planning, multi-rater feedback, coaching and mentoring
  • Making managers accountable for the learning and development of their people
  • Ensuring culture change and organisational effectiveness projects acknowledge and foster the importance of workplace learning
     

Carry out your own research on Workplace Leadership Development

Identify a job that you believe is a 'gateway' to more senior roles in your organisation (or sector). Ask a sample of people in that job:

1. What does leadership mean to you?
2. What opportunities do you have to lead in your job?
3. Give one example of your leadership in the past six months?
4. What did you learn from this experience?
5. What would it take for you to become an even better leader in your job?

Review the responses and ask yourself what opportunities there might be to enhance leadership and leadership development in this job?
 

Marke Jenner can be contacted at markjenner@mjaltd.com

Read the survey results for individual indusrty sectors: