As we try to imagine our organisations post-pandemic, business leaders know that they will need to acquire new management outlooks and recalibrate their capabilities.
For some, the chances are that this will not simply be a self-taught process; they will need help in order to learn these adjustments and perform differently in the domains of leadership, innovation, strategy, alignment, engagement and reputation.
So, it seems, leadership development will still have a place. But what kind of place and what exactly could this mean for practitioners, consultants, academics and those in L&D functions tasked with designing and delivering leadership development interventions?
There is no shortage of advice from writers on this issue and many are keen to propose new lists of competencies which our new super-heroes will need to acquire and the prescribed steps towards renewal as if it were just a matter of servicing and re-fixing our leaders and then somehow things will be ok.
But why should they be? Maybe it’s time to repurpose leadership development. And we propose that there are a few essential perspectives to this.
Firstly, perhaps more than ever, we will need to get clarity on the purpose of leadership development. In essence, we have come to think that the ultimate purpose of leadership development is enabling the delivery of organisational strategy; more specifically, helping leaders to learn how to perform differently when creating and implementing new strategies.
Another way to conceive of the purpose of leadership is to see it as creating and nurturing an organisational culture where innovation can flourish.
From another angle, it is unlikely to have a conversation about leadership without alluding to culture and innovation. Another way to conceive of the purpose of leadership is to see it as creating and nurturing an organisational culture where innovation can flourish. As we emerge from lockdown, we know that many businesses have been under pressure to innovate in terms of products, services, processes or business models. This is nothing new. But to continue to imagine, organise and mobilise in a world that will be significantly different is new and this looks like one of the leadership challenges of the decade. So, as providers of leadership development, how can we help our top teams achieve this? One way might be to help them set a tone of genuine inquiry (as well as the inevitable advocacy) in their decision-making; and allow challenging conversations which cut to the heart of the matter through critical and diverse thinking. And why is this so? Because tame solutions will not make the cut and radical innovation is needed to ensure survival. The need of the hour is to ‘crack’ something that can provide consistent value creation beyond incremental me-too solutions.
And what about the leadership tools and techniques on offer in our programmes? Many leaders find themselves struggling because the proven tools and techniques of the past are failing in the hour of need. There is an increasing realisation that most of these were perfectly designed for a very different world and hence now they are being questioned for their validity and effectiveness. The problem with most of these tools and techniques is that they attempt to predict the future based on the present and the past; but new challenges may well have no history and extrapolating from the past can lead organisations down a dangerous path that may have a clear beginning, but no end.
...new challenges may well have no history and extrapolating from the past can lead organisations down a dangerous path that may have a clear beginning, but no end.
So, where does this leave us? Today arguably we need new ways that of developing our leaders that are more human, smart, agile, social and that allows to build intimate relationships which embrace complexity and enable leaders to connect with real problems and discover the true needs of their customers. At Cranfield we are discovering that a design-thinking approach to leadership development can have a transformational effect on individuals and organisations. And here it is important to emphasize that the focus needs to be on the principles of design thinking and not on design. There is a stark difference between the two. Whilst design is concerned with the looks and feel of the learning intervention, design thinking draws on the logic, systems thinking and co-creation of knowledge that benefits the participants.
To learn more about the design thinking approach to leadership development, please download the full article.
About the authors
Dr Imran Zawwar joined Cranfield in 2013, he is an executive development strategist with experience in Asia, Middle East, Europe, and Australia. He looks after Cranfield Executive Development Programmes with a special focus on Innovation, Strategic Management and Strategising in the Digital landscape. Imran is part of the Strategy Group at Cranfield School of Management and the Regional Director Middle East for Cranfield Executive Development Programmes. View full profile.
Lester Coupland joined Cranfield in 2007 and has over 30 years of extensive global experience of consulting, leadership and organisational development. He has undertaken client assignments in 40 countries worldwide and works in English, French and Spanish. As an experienced consultant, facilitator and coach, his main focus is using leadership development interventions to bring about organisational change to enable successful delivery of strategic goals. Currently he is an executive development director, Head of Praxis and a member of the Organisational Resilience and Change Leadership Thought Leadership Group. View full profile.
