Situation: Many CEOs face challenges developing and training leaders within their ranks. What guidance can the group give to help guide them improve leadership development? How do you develop and train leaders?

Advice from the CEOs:

• On the hiring end, pick good people and support them.
• Empower employees and encourage self-management.
• Constructively manage the company’s growth rate rather than just “grow as much as you can.” Some growth rates are unsustainable.
  • Estimate the risks and rewards.
  • Consider the pros and cons of growth and manage growth to maximize the pros while minimizing the cons.
• Respect personality types – not everyone is or wants to be a potential leader.
• Mentoring – pair leadership candidates with proven leaders.
• “Response to error” is one of the key values to define. If errors are always used to evaluate individuals, people tend to hide their mistakes or deflect blame. If errors are viewed as a “company resource”, people are more willing to bring them out into the open. Furthermore properly addressing errors are the best opportunity for correction and improvement.
• Design the compensation system to reward both innovation and leadership.
  • Focus rewards on long-term results. For example, reward sales people on follow-up and quality of service or product actually delivered rather than on just booking the sale.
  • Align rewards with company culture and objectives. This may include profits, sales and production. Alternatives to consider – team vs. individual goals and bonuses, process improvement vs. focus on dollars, and percent of salary represented by bonus or award.
• Ask the employees what is important to them. Don’t try to guess.
• Evaluate and adjust the company’s career growth opportunities.
• Make management thoughts and goals visible. Mentor the next level of management by demonstrating executive thought patterns rather than just sharing the final decision.

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