By Christopher J. Stevenson
People will say it’s difficult or even impossible to know what you don’t know. After all, you don’t know it.
But a recent white paper from the Center for Creative Leadership, “The Leadership Gap: What You Need and Still Don’t Have When It Comes to Leadership Talent,” defined six key gaps in knowledge that leaders need today and will increasingly need in the future. These are inspiring commitment, leading employees, strategic planning, change management, employee development and self-awareness.
Interestingly, the survey also identified five leadership knowledge areas in which companies have over-invested and for which significant skills already exist. These are respect for differences, composure, cultural adaptation, compassion and sensitivity, and putting people at ease.
These two lists of what competencies are missing and where the bench strength exists provide executives, HR managers and talent development organizations like CUES important guidance about what leaders don’t know, but need to—and therefore, where to focus.
The need for credit union leaders to have deeper knowledge of the six key competencies above drives executives to sign up for—and to send their teams to—the three segments of CEO Institute. In turn, each week-long program at a top U.S. business school teaches participants strategic planning (cues.org/ceoi), organizational development (cues.org/ceoii), and awareness of their own leadership styles (cues.org/ceoiii).
The need for more leaders to develop their ability in change management and strategic planning has also helped drive the development of CUES’ newest programs—the two-segment Strategic Innovation Institute™ (cues.org/institutes) and, launching this year, Mergers & Acquisitions Institute (cues.org/mai).
Six Key Trends
But addressing the gap in leadership skills needed today and those that will be needed in the future isn’t so simple as attending training or sending a team members off to learn. According to the CCL paper, the leadership deficit continues because of six key trends:
1) Outdated leadership styles continue through current selection development and reward practices.
2) Leaders are resistant to changing their leadership style.
3) Organizations don’t invest enough in leadership development.
4) Current business challenges require a different style of leadership.
5) A democratic leadership style is needed for innovation.
6) Employees are not interested in developing leadership skills.
Five Tactical Steps
How can credit unions overcome these trends? As I wrote previously in CUToday here, they need to create a cohesive approach to leadership development that links to their overall strategy. At the same time, the CCL report suggested five tactical steps to take to help bridge the leadership gap:
- Perform a leadership skills needs assessment.
- Create a leadership strategy and align development initiatives with operational needs.
- Develop clear, specific goals and strategies for individual leadership development.
- Create systems for recruiting, identifying and developing talent, and excel at performance management and retention.
- Evaluate how these efforts are paying off across the organization.
Many people think they are leaders and developers of leaders because their titles indicate that they are. But this research shows that most leaders have much to learn. As you sit down at the strategic planning table this season, make sure you have discussions about leadership development—and include “stay out of the leadership gap trap” in your short list of strategic priorities.
Christopher Stevenson, CIE, is SVP/chief learning officer of CUES (www.cues.org), a Madison, Wis.-based international membership association focused 100 percent on credit union talent development.