Leadership - a crisis of confidence?

Students researching leadership for upcoming A2 exams will find some useful evidence here to include in their analysis….

Lest anyone think that leading a business is easy, take a look at some of the statistics provided by a major survey of corporate leadership just published by DDI and reported here in HR Magazine.

For example, the survey found that, globally only 18% (20% in UK) of HR professionals believe their organisation has the leadership bench [team] strength it needs to meet future business challenges. That is despite firms spending a total of over £14 billion each year on leadership development training! Remember the recent candidate on The Apprentice whose job was “develpping leaders”? No wonder she claimed to be making such good money!

Students should consider what these “future business challenges are” - and why existing leaders might not be up to the job of tackling them? I suspect that the rapid pace of technological change and competition from new firms with disruptive business models would be high at the top of many CEO’s list.

The survey also points to some evidence which students could use to support an assertion that good leadership benefits a firm in many different aspects of its strategy and operations.

For example, consider this quote from the article:

“When compared with the competition, leaders in organisations that have highly rated leadership are more effective in many key areas, including financial performance, at 2.8 times more effective; customer satisfaction, at 4.6 times more effective; productivity, at 4.7 times more effective and quality of services, at 4.4 times more effective.”

How about that for some stats? Better leadership is linked with better performance in just about every key operational area - particularly quality and customer service.

That’s an important point for students to remember when writing about leadership in their essays. The right kind of effective leadership is undoubtedly a source of sustainable competitive advantage.