Get more from leadership development.
I help organisations get more from leadership development.
Leadership development is one of the most important investments an organisation can make.
I believe that investment needs a new ambition.
Ironically, leadership development has never been easier to buy or harder to invest in well.
There are more programs, providers, technologies and development options than ever before.
That’s good news. It also makes investment decisions considerably harder.
Whether you're developing your leadership strategy, creating a leadership framework or introducing a leadership program, you're making decisions about how to develop better leaders.
Some of those decisions create lasting value. Others create far less than hoped.
I've spent much of my career wondering why.
I don’t think the problem is intetnion.
Every organisation I work with wants to develop better leaders.
It’s the right intention. I just don’t believe it’s the right ambition.
Because I believe that organisations don't just want better leaders.
They want to become organisations that consistently develop better leaders.
A new ambition for leadership development.
Over time, I have come to believe that organisations get the most from leadership development when they make progress on two questions simultaneously:
Leadership development creates the greatest return when every investment achieves two things:
It develops better leaders today and strengthens the organisation's ability to develop leaders tomorrow.
Many organisations invest successfully in the first. Fewer deliberately invest in the second.
That's where I think many organisations unintentionally leave value on the table.
How do we develop better leaders?
And...
How do we become an organisation that gets better at developing leaders?
The first develops individual capability. The second strengthens organisational capability.
Neither is enough on its own.
Programs matter - they just can’t carry the whole load.
Leadership programs are often expected to produce organisational outcomes that only organisations can create.
The best leadership programs influence the broader organisation. At the same time, the organisation shapes the success of every development experience delivered within it.
When those two begin strengthening one another, something changes. Leadership development stops feeling like a series of initiatives.
It starts becoming an organisational capability.
Capability isn't purchased. It's built.
Leadership development creates the greatest value when it becomes part of what an organisation does, not simply something it buys.
Because the goal isn't simply to deliver leadership development. The real goal is to build an organisation that's capable of developing leaders.
That's the work I love.
How I help.
Everything I do is designed to help organisations make better leadership development decisions and turn those decisions into organisational capability.
My work brings together two interconnected organising principles:
The Knowing-to-Doing Pathway™ helps develop better leaders through participant journeys designed in line with the way behaviour change is most likely to occur.
The LDS Wheel™ helps strengthen an organisation's capacity to develop leaders by creating the conditions for new leadership behaviours to take hold.
One designs for behaviour change. The other designs the conditions that help it last.
Together, they ensure that every investment in leadership development contributes to both developing better leaders and helping the organisation get better at developing them.
Whether we're strengthening your leadership development system, designing a leadership program or thinking through your next investment, the goal remains the same:
Helping organisations get more from leadership development.
Where would you like to start?
Strengthen your organisation's capacity to develop leaders:
Explore Leadership Development Systems
Design leadership development that creates lasting value:
Think it through together:
Organisations that have got more from leadership development:
Let’s work out what will create the greatest impact.
If you're making important decisions about leadership development, I'd love to hear what you're trying to achieve.