The Fuqua/Coach K Center on Leadership & Ethics (COLE) has released its findings of its first annual Executive Leadership Survey. Drawing upon responses from 205 executives from public and private companies, key findings included the top five leadership challenges facing organizations; how organizations develop leaders, and the type of skills executives find most important. The survey was conducted in partnership with publishing house, John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Preliminary results were presented at the seventh annual Fuqua/Coach K Leadership Conference in October.
Highlight of Findings from The Executive Leadership Survey
Top 5 Leadership Challenges
1. Increasing innovation
2. Leading internal (organic) organizational growth
3. Improving overall quality of our organization's leadership
4. Developing the next generation of leaders (i.e., training)
5. Increasing employee commitment/retention [large employers]
5 Availability of capital [small employers]
Given the timing of the survey, which was conducted during the widely-publicized current financial crisis, we were surprised that capital availability was not more of a concern for larger employers (>1,000 employees), as well as smaller employers. It is also noteworthy that the perceived importance of leader development was only surpassed by issues of innovation and growth.
Leadership Skills Rated as Most Important
1. Promoting an ethical environment
2. Acting with authenticity
3. Interpreting the competitive environment
4. Developing trust
5. Demonstrating optimism and enthusiasm
The leadership skills executives identified as being important for senior executives in their organizations highlighted a set of skills that are critical in challenging times. In particular, by emphasizing the combination of ethics, authenticity, understanding and ability to interpret the competitive environment and developing trust, executives highlighted the skills required for a leader to have credibility. People want to believe that their leaders understand the real challenges faced by the employees, and that the leader's rhetoric on critical issues, such as ethical behavior and demonstrating optimism and enthusiasm, is authentic and can be trusted.
Preparing Effective Leaders
We found that most programs have significant room for improvement when it comes to developing effective leaders for organizations. It appears that our current methods of training leaders are still not meeting the expectations of today's business leaders, and that both universities and employers have more work to do when it comes to training our future leaders. We found it particularly noteworthy that none of the current mechanisms for preparing leaders were rated as “very good” or “excellent”.
Time Spent on Leadership Development
We found that most senior executives spend less than 25% of their time on leadership development. While this is not a surprising finding for CEOs and Presidents of companies, we were surprised to learn that many executives also reported that their appointed Chief Learning Officer (CLO) and Head of Leader Development were not spending more time developing their employees' leadership skills. An additional intriguing finding was the positive correlation between the amount of time spent on leadership development by the CLO and/or the Head of Leader Development and the firm's reported financial performance. Thus, while we wouldn't expect CEOs to devote most of their time to leader development, we would expect CLOs and Heads of Leader Development to do so – especially when spending more time for them translates into bottom line results.
We are continuing to analyze the results and their implications and will be developing publications based on this for Wiley & Sons.
If you are interested in learning more about the Executive Leadership Survey findings, and other COLE research, contact Jim Emery, Ph.D., COLE Research Director.
Note: The launch date of the survey was after the announcement of some of the most recent financial troubles, including news about Wachovia, Morgan Stanley and others. It launched right before the large market decline on Monday, September 29, and the subsequent market slide after that date.
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Leadership Challenges and Skills in the Downturn, Businessweek.com