One Major Reason Most Leadership Programs Fail In Most Organizations

"How do we get New Leaders to rise up?"

This is a common question most businesses have.

It's also a great question to ask because the ability to raise New Leaders within an organization can be the lifeblood of a business.

Being able to raise New Leaders tends to

• lead to more successful organizations
• creates better work environments
• leads to fewer challenges with different Leadership mindsets
• costs businesses less money in the long run

Really, it should be the goal of all organizations to raise Leaders internally.

However, it also is one of the greatest struggles.

The Problems

According to data, only 1 in 10 Critical Leadership Positions in organizations have someone ready to fill them.

This means that for most organizations, 9/10 times they need to replace Critical Leaders with people outside their organization.

As Leadership positions take the longest to replace, require more resources to get a good candidate, and then take more to convince them to work for your organization, it is a tough place to be.

This is made even more difficult today due to the extremely low levels of unemployment.

That means that the pool of candidates is much shallower than normal, and requires even MORE to convince them to work for you.

All of this could be avoided if you could raise Leaders internally.

However, this isn't happening in the vast majority of organizations.

It isn't for a lack of trying either - $350 Billion is spent yearly attempting to create and improve Leaders through "Leadership Development".

However, these programs completely fail 80% of the time, and the rest only have "limited" success.

Why is this?

Why It Happens

Well, there are a couple of reasons for it, but there is one primary one that will continuously hold you back as an organization, no matter how much money you pour into "Development".

It can be understood with one question.

Are you an Exemplar?

The reality is, that most Leaders are not seen as Exemplars in their organization.

That is also part of the key - you need to be "Seen" as an Exemplar.

It isn't enough to "feel" like you are an Exemplar, your team(s) need to speak among themselves about how you ARE an Exemplar.

If they don't "see" you as an Exemplar, you will never be able to grow them into Leaders within your organization, no matter how much potential they have.

Why?

There are a few reasons.

Outcome 1

One, if they don't see you as an Exemplar, they may not take the Leadership Development seriously.

That's right, you could pay for their development as Leaders, give them exactly what they need, and they may not do anything with it because they don't see you as an Exemplar of Leadership.

As the phrase goes, "It's like the Pot calling the Kettle Black."

If they don't see you growing, improving, and making the workplace better as a Leader, why should they work hard to become a Leader for you?

They often won't, it's that simple.

Outcome 2

A Second reason could be that they DO take Leadership Development seriously, but they just don't take YOU seriously.

This actually could be worse because you could see the improvements that are happening in this situation, but you're missing what is about to happen.

As you see the growth, you get excited because "finally" there's someone who has the potential and seems to be getting it.

You start to make new plans taking into account their growth!

What you don't see is that behind the scenes, they don't trust you or believe in you as a Leader, and so are beginning a new search.

They are learning the lessons they need, but they aren't doing it for you.

They are doing it so that they can get a leg up in a different organization, where they will hopefully find Leaders who ARE Exemplars.

So all that time, money, and effort have now been sent off to another organization because you weren't the Exemplar Leader that the individual was looking for.

Takeaway

Are you having these problems?

Are you struggling to raise new Leaders?

Do you struggle to keep Leaders in your organization?

Do you lose high-potential employees?

If so, it is likely that you aren't being "seen" as an Exemplar Leader.

It's not that you don't have the ability to though.

You simply need to learn HOW to be seen as an Exemplar Leader.

Learning to do this could be the difference between success and failure as a Leader.