Why a lack of investment in Leadership Learning and Development will cost a company dearly.
Continuous learning for people leading organisations is more important than ever, yet it’s so often overlooked – even though the cost of not investing in leadership development is huge.
Independent studies by the Conference Board, Bersin by Deloitte, HR analytics experts McBassi & Company, and The Centre for Creative Leadership all reach the same conclusion:
Leadership development is one of the most pressing issues facing organisations today.
Why?
Because it represents a great chance for organisations to seize a competitive advantage in their industries by improving the bottom line; attracting, developing, and retaining talent; driving strategy execution; and increasing success when navigating change.
- Improved profits – organisations that invest in their senior leaders outperform their competition with higher profits because their leaders build capacity to reduce costs, drive new lines of revenue, and improve customer satisfaction.
- Attracting and retaining talent – great leaders attract, hire, and inspire great people; as a result of its investment in senior leaders, employee retention can be up to 20 times greater.
- Driving strategy execution – leadership development delivers impact and success in strengthening the constantly evolving skills critical to effective and successful work performance.
- Increased organisational agility and success when navigating change – leadership development increases people’s ability to lead in a disruptive world.
Unfortunately, the research also finds that capable leadership talent is rare!
- only 60% of leaders in organisations show commercial acumen and business judgment,
- only 48% are seen as driving change and innovation, and
- only 44% build talent for competitive advantage.
And here’s another interesting fact to ponder. The 2020 Workplace Learning Report from LinkedIn revealed that over a third of global learning and development firms and professionals expected their budgets to grow every year. However, the same study reported that only 27% of C-level executives actively promoted such learning.
Companies, and therefore by default, leaders at all levels of the organisation are facing a Herculean challenge, having to adapt to far-ranging external and internal pressures – and as a result, many are flailing and failing quickly.
If they are to thrive (in some cases, even survive), company leaders must learn to adapt. And here, the operative word is ‘learn’. A company’s capacity to learn – in effect its leaders’ capacity to learn, determines its capacity to adapt and ultimately, its chances of surviving and thriving far into the future.
If the leaders aren’t learning, the company isn’t growing. And if the company is not growing, its stagnating and ultimately failing.
Making a commitment to the continuous learning of an organisation’s current and future leaders, has to be one of the most important decisions modern business owners, CEOs, Managing Directors and the like, have to make these days.
The question is, can they really afford not to invest in the learning and development of their leaders?
20th February 2023