In most cases, your organization will have a number of more seasoned leaders who have dealt with similar challenges and could offer some help and guidance. By using coaching and mentoring programs strategically, you can support your newer managers with access to more experienced leaders, thereby cultivating an organizational culture that prioritizes learning and developing a pipeline of leaders who are resilient, agile, and engaged.

But how do you get started with organizational coaching and mentoring programs?

First, start with an understanding of how they’re similar and how they’re different.

Coaching and Mentoring Programs: What’s the Difference?

Coaching and mentoring are typically related and sometimes overlap. However, while both may be performed by the same leader, coaches and mentors serve different roles, and it’s important to know the difference between coaching and mentoring:

Coaching typically focuses on enhancing current job performance by helping someone resolve a here-and-now issue or blockage for themselves.

HR leaders often prioritize leadership coaching services, such as executive coaching, because coaching helps individual leaders hone self-awareness and provides individualized challenge and support. But coaching doesn’t always have to be provided by a formal coach; coaching can happen for everyone across the organization when people are skilled at holding coaching conversations.

Mentoring, on the other hand, focuses on career path. Rather than helping someone resolve a current challenge, mentoring at work is usually about a mentor helping a “mentee” to become more capable in the near future. Mentors take time to guide and advise their mentees on issues that will likely arise, but may not have yet.

Mentors leverage their expertise to transfer knowledge and help expand networks. They can also leverage their positions to sponsor mentees for developmental experiences, advocate on their behalf for promotions, and survey the environment for threatening forces and opportunities.

Recommendations for HR Leaders Implementing Coaching and Mentoring Programs

Learning to lead is an intensely personal experience, so it’s particularly important for new and emerging leaders to have access to coaches and mentors who can provide them with guidance, support, and context for their their development. Organizational coaching and mentoring programs can be a formal part of an enterprise-wide initiative, or they can be more informal arrangements that are agreed to by both parties.

If you’re designing, initiating, or implementing coaching programs, drive better outcomes by exploring our actionable handbook of coaching in organizations.

Creating a Culture of Coaching and Mentoring

When an organization has a “culture of coaching,” it has a culture that encourages giving feedback and honest conversations across functions and leader levels that amplify collaboration, agreement, and alignment.

Any conversation can become a leadership development opportunity when it’s candid.

Our research with emerging leaders shows that when people are in the early stages of their careers, they often feel it’s risky to speak up. When supervisors and informal coaches throughout the organization demonstrate that they value the thoughts and perspectives of even the youngest members of their teams, they build understanding and glean a more accurate picture of the challenges and opportunities their direct reports face.

Senior leaders and managers can apply the following foundational conversational skills to all of their interactions to coach their people, helping to foster an organizational culture of feedback, coaching, and candor:

Build These 4 Conversational Skills for a Coaching Culture

1. Listen to understand.

When supervisors listen to colleagues, they should be aware of their own agenda. Instead of trying to promote that agenda, listening to understand involves listening with an open mind for facts, feelings, and values.

2. Ask powerful questions.

As 2 people delve into a conversation, they can uncover new insights by making inquiries that stretch the other person’s thinking. Encourage “coaches” to begin their questions with “what” or “how” to tap into feelings and values that encourage reflection.

3. Strike a balance between challenge and support.

Listening to understand doesn’t mean listening to agree. Supervisors can show their support by restating the facts and values they hear. When 2 people have a shared trust built on psychological safety, they are able to ask tough, challenging questions that uncover unexamined assumptions.

4. End your conversation with clear next steps.

Supervisors can establish a sense of accountability by agreeing to next steps. That can be as easy as committing to one small action item that moves the issue forward and demonstrates that the supervisor values the facts and emotions shared by the individual being coached.

Consider What Makes Mentoring Programs Successful

Whereas coaching is intended to address a current challenge, mentoring looks to the future. Therefore, the most successful mentoring programs include careful, strategic planning.

According to our guidebook, Seven Keys to Successful Mentoring, mentoring is an intentional, developmental relationship between a more experienced, knowledgeable person and a less experienced, less knowledgeable person. Often, but not always, this means an older person mentoring a younger one, although reverse mentoring arrangements flip this model around, but work in much the same way.

When creating or improving an organizational mentoring initiative, use these strategies and questions as a guide:

• Be purposeful and strategic. Before you begin pairing mentors and mentees, consider your goals and how these goals fit into your overall development efforts. Think about how your demographics might change in the next 5 years: Who will retire, and who will backfill those roles? How will this mentoring program fit into your overall business plan and human resources strategies?
• Engage leaders. The most effective mentorship programs have buy-in at the executive level. Once you’ve outlined your goals, clearly articulate and communicate those goals. What role can the CEO and senior team play in the process? Who else in the organization will help make the formal mentoring program work?
• Start small. It takes time to recruit and brief the right mentors and mentees, and lessons learned from the beginning of the program can prove beneficial when it’s time to extend it to more people. Be sure your program includes a diverse group of leaders (all genders, people of color, different levels/career stages, etc.) and establishes clear rules about confidentiality to establish trust.
• Train mentors and mentees on skills for developing the relationship and holding mentor conversations. You can’t assume senior people will have the right skills for mentoring. Investing time and resources in training also shows that the company leadership values the program. Along the way, offer support for mentors; this support should be included in the program’s design.
• Measure and share. What is most important for the organization and those participating? Consider the specific needs of the mentoring partners, HR, and business leaders. How can you publicize any early wins in order to build momentum?

Coaching and Mentoring Programs: Especially Key for New Leaders

As noted in our white paper on mentoring first-time managers, when individual contributors are promoted into their first formal leadership positions, many don’t expect the transition to be as difficult as it is. Worse, they often lack the support and development needed to help make that transition successfully. Without support, new managers can suffer — along with their teams and direct reports. By extension, this affects the organization’s retention levels and leadership pipeline, which ultimately can negatively impact the bottom line.

Given the important role that frontline managers play in talent development and succession management, organizations should help ease the transition for new managers by providing them with access to leadership development — especially courses targeted to the needs of new managers — and by exploring formal organizational coaching and mentoring programs to support them.

Ready to Take the Next Step?

Give your new leaders the support they need to reach their full potential and help move your organization forward through a combination of coaching and mentoring programs, coaching and conversational skills training, and proven development courses that work for your culture and needs.

The post How to Use Coaching and Mentoring Programs to Develop New Leaders appeared first on CCL.

Our white paper explores what research suggests are the direct benefits of leadership development (i.e., program-specific outcomes) and the indirect benefits of development, including increased employee engagement and attractiveness to potential employees. It outlines 4 key leadership development benefits that have emerged from both our own and other research, noting that investments in leadership development:

1. Facilitate organizational alignment,
2. Enhance the organization’s change readiness,
3. Promote equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI), and
4. Strengthen leadership pipelines.

Creating Competitive Leadership Advantage

When implemented effectively and comprehensively, leadership development has the potential to grow individuals and transform an entire organization from being one that merely meets its objectives into one that excels.

That’s why we say that one of the key benefits of leadership development is also simply that it creates competitive leadership advantage. And having a competitive leadership advantage not only raises the organization’s level of leadership capacity, developing a healthy leadership pipeline for the future, but also enables organizational agility, which is essential in today’s era of constant disruption.

One of the most critical drivers of organizational success in adapting to change is effective leadership at all levels — not just at the top.

To create the engagement and productivity required for this level of performance, leaders need to inspire others, drive innovation, collaborate across boundaries, and create an environment of psychological safety and inclusion. But these leadership skills don’t simply emerge and spread throughout the organization on their own. It takes focused effort and intentional strategy to optimize the leadership talent organizations need today and in the future.

Building these needed skills, from the top to the bottom of your organization, can feel like an impossible task. How can you possibly get quality development into the hands of all employees to fully leverage the benefits of leadership development?

The answer is by implementing a leadership development initiative that can be scaled. A scalable leadership development program is one that can easily be adapted and executed across an organization, regardless of its size or structure. A scalable development program unlocks leadership development’s benefits and creates significant competitive leadership advantage.

Download our white paper today to learn the many benefits of leadership development and how to scale it to start building a stronger talent pipeline at your organization.

Download White Paper

The post Creating Competitive Leadership Advantage: 4 Ways That Scaling Development Powers Engagement, Retention & ROI appeared first on CCL.

Who can forget the countless surveys that indicated a significant decline in confidence in leadership bench strength, or the reports that the leadership gap is a top concern among talent management professionals and CEOs alike?

Common causes of the leadership gap contributing to a leadership shortage include generational shifts in the workforce due to the retirement of many Baby Boomers, changes in the nature of work itself, recruiting wars for high-potential talent, and poor organizational practices identifying, selecting, and developing talent.

Yet companies, government agencies, nonprofits, and educational organizations need leaders who can effectively navigate complex and changing situations in the future.

To address the leadership gap, organizations need to be asking “Who do we have?” and “What do they need to do?” as well as “Are they equipped to do it?”

What Is the Leadership Gap?

Simply put, the leadership gap is how aligned current leadership is with what’s thought to be important for leadership effectiveness in the future.

And current research shows that current leaders aren’t adequately prepared for the future. This finding is consistent across countries, organizations, and levels in the organization.

At CCL, we have a long history of studying the leadership gap. More than 15 years ago, we started to document the gap between the readiness of future organizational leaders and their current leadership skills. Our research has found that the leadership gap persists, and that little progress has been made in addressing it.

We designed a research project to understand which leadership skills are critical for success, now and in the future; how strong current leaders are in these critical skills; and how aligned today’s leadership is with what will be the most important skills in the future. And we found that crucial leadership skills in organizations are insufficient for meeting current and future needs.

Other academics and leadership development organizations have documented similar shortcomings. Below we’ll share more about what the leadership gap is and what the challenges are with closing it.

What Causes a Leadership Gap?

A leadership gap can be caused by either:

• A lack of mastery of the required competencies, or
• A lack of focus on necessary skills.

The first is a matter of degree; the second is a matter of substance. But either can be a problem, in both the short and long term. Organizations will want to address this coming leadership gap in their talent development.

Our study found that today’s leadership capacity is insufficient to meet future leadership requirements. Many organizations have a list of high-priority leadership competencies for their future leaders; our research shows the limitations of current skills in many of these areas and flags areas of particular concern. The data from our study indicates that most organizations today are experiencing a leadership deficit now, and can expect a leadership gap in the future.

We’ve identified 9 specific leadership competencies that are weak or missing in terms of future leadership needs and current skills:

1. Managing change
2. Inspiring commitment
3. Leading employees
4. Taking initiative
5. Building collaborative relationships
6. Having a strategic perspective
7. Knowing strategic planning
8. Embracing participative management
9. Being a quick learner

Notably, the leadership gap appears most problematic in high-priority, high-stakes areas. Other areas where there’s a significant gap between the needed and existing skill levels were employee development and self-awareness.

Barriers to Bridging the Leadership Gap

To be sure, companies, government agencies, and nonprofits want their future leaders to be prepared for the future. But internal and external forces are often blocking or slowing down leader development efforts, creating the leadership gap. Those include:

• Outdated ideas about leadership. For many leaders and employees, the term “leader” still suggests an individual whose role is to provide all the answers. However, we know the most effective leaders are those who are skilled at influencing, collaborating, and helping a team or organization discover the answers through coaching conversations. Our research has also found that some individuals view leadership roles as requiring trade-offs with other priorities, such as family. Those perceptions — whether true or not — are likely dissuading many high-potential employees from pursuing leadership development and leadership roles.
• Digital disruption. The pace of technological innovation over the last generation has reshaped markets, created new industries, and transformed the way we work. But many organizations and their workers are struggling. Training and adoption of new technologies — such as those required for remote working and distributed teams — hasn’t kept up. One study a few years ago found that more than 60% of organizations surveyed provided no training for virtual teams or virtual team leaders on how to deal with the challenges of collaborating virtually. And opportunities such as analytics and the promise of Big Data have many organizations scrambling to understand what talent and skills they’ll need to fill their leadership pipeline. One way to mitigate this challenge may be by setting up reverse mentoring arrangements.
• Flatter organizations and more dynamic environments. In our faster-moving economy, rigid hierarchical organizational charts have given way to flatter, more agile structures. While this helps companies respond faster to customer needs and changing markets, it has also eliminated the traditional “move up the ladder” leadership development path. Now lateral movement — perhaps to a different geographic or functional area — is required for individuals who want to become leaders. Mapping out these lateral-and-upward career paths is tough for individuals and organizations.
• Intense competition for top talent and higher turnover. The days of a 30- or 40-year career with a single organization are long gone. Organizations find themselves focused on competing with other organizations to attract and retain high-potential talent. In addition, as more workers reach retirement age, organizations may be challenged to identify new potential leaders and build a leadership pipeline.
• Misaligned systems for measuring and rewarding work performance. Old ways of evaluating and rewarding employees don’t make much sense when career growth requires lateral movement — and employees may switch from one employer to another every few years. Furthermore, organizations may be investing in outdated practices that contribute to the leadership gap and also fail to align with organizational goals and strategies. Organizations need to become aware of what truly engages and motivates employees and start bridging their leadership gap with the 9 key leadership competencies.

In the face of unrelenting disruption, effective leadership is what’s needed most. Download our new Talent Development report to learn how investing in talent development today will position your organization to succeed tomorrow.

Get the Report

What Can Be Done About the Leadership Gap?

How Organizations Can Take Action on It Today

To avoid a discrepancy between areas of strength and areas of need, our white paper offers 5 steps that organizations can take to help bridge the leadership gap between current leadership talent and future leadership needs:

1. Perform a needs assessment.

Identify the capabilities that managers need now and in the future to execute and sustain the organization’s strategy. Use your people data to determine organizational needs and understand leadership gaps.

2. Create a leadership strategy.

A clear understanding of the leadership behaviors and business goals allows executives to develop a leadership strategy. In turn, organizational development initiatives can be aligned with operational needs.

3. Develop clear, specific goals and strategies for individual leadership development.

Assess managers’ strengths and weaknesses as leaders against the core competencies identified in the needs assessment. You can use 360-degree leadership assessment tools to do help evaluate individuals’ strengths and development needs. Be sure to factor in feedback, coaching, and assessment towards addressing these development needs and to ensure goal attainment.

4. Create systems.

When important competencies are found to be weak spots, targeted development initiatives can be put into place. Evaluating your managers’ opinions about development needs can help you create a plan for developing leadership talent and closing the leadership gap. On the individual and tactical level, managers need to align the development experiences of managers with organizational objectives. Make sure that you don’t overlook vertical development when doing this.

5. Evaluate.

Build in systems for measuring how these efforts are paying off across the organization. Evaluating the impact of leadership development is a critical final step in order to understand what additional resources are needed and key metrics to track. Leadership analytics and evaluation services can help you determine ROI.

A Closing Word on Addressing the Leadership Gap

At CCL, we have developed a Leadership Gap Indicator that’s specifically designed to help companies examine their own data and better understand particular strengths, challenges, current leadership deficits, and anticipated future leadership gaps specific to their organization. This information can help senior management facilitate conversations about the identification, development, and retention of key leadership talent.

The sooner organizations understand the reality of their leadership gap, the quicker they can move to adapt by refocusing leadership development efforts and rethinking recruitment priorities.

To increase leadership capacity, strengthen the future leadership pipeline, and close the leadership gap, organizations need to take both a strategic and a tactical approach.

Ready to Take the Next Step?

Future-proofing your organization’s talent pipeline requires you to first understand where a leadership gap currently exists. We’re ready to help you to close the gap and build critical leadership skills and competencies that are right for your organization’s unique context and culture. Partner with us to unlock the power of your people data, diagnose your current state, and design a customized leadership development solution that will start closing your leadership gap today.

The post The Leadership Gap: How to Fix What Your Organization Lacks appeared first on CCL.