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Leadership development learning accelerators: voices from the trenches

Clinton O. Longenecker (Department of Management, Center for Leadership and Organizational Excellence, College of Business and Innovation, University of Toledo, Toledo, Ohio, USA)
Gary S. Insch (Department of Management, College of Business and Innovation, University of Toledo, Toledo, Ohio, USA)

Development and Learning in Organizations

ISSN: 1477-7282

Article publication date: 4 March 2019

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the practices that high-performance leaders believed were influential for accelerating their development as leaders.

Design/methodology/approach

The sample consisted of US based, mid-level leaders at Fortune 1000 companies who were identified by their organizations as being “high performers possessing the strong ability to deliver desired results for their enterprises.” The authors recently conducted focus groups with a subset of over 200 of these high-performing leaders and asked them to answer the following question: “Please identify what you would consider to be the five (5) most influential factors that accelerated your development as a leader.” Leaders were then randomly assigned to five-person focus groups to discuss their individual responses and come to consensus on what they considered to be the top leadership development “accelerators.” A content analysis of over 20 focus groups’ response sets allowed us to identify a list of top leadership development “accelerators”.

Findings

Seven leadership accelerators were identified: working for a great leader; experiencing an extremely challenging assignment or major organizational change; working in an organization that requires and supports skill development; possessing a strong mentor/accountability partner; ongoing personal reflection and self-assessment; experiencing a significant failure or career setback; and formal leadership development training/continuing education.

Research limitations/implications

It is important that leaders, HR professionals, and talent managers know and understand these factors and to make it an ongoing priority to systematically address the key questions that emerged from these findings.

Practical implications

Leaders should thoughtfully answer the questions presented for themselves and encourage leaders in their organization to do the same.

Originality/value

This paper, using primary data from “high-performance” leaders, identifies and explains seven important leadership development accelerators.

Keywords

Citation

Longenecker, C.O. and Insch, G.S. (2019), "Leadership development learning accelerators: voices from the trenches", Development and Learning in Organizations, Vol. 33 No. 2, pp. 12-15. https://doi.org/10.1108/DLO-07-2018-0084

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2018, Emerald Publishing Limited

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