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Ethos Issue 5, Nov 2008
Accelerating the Growth of the Asian Leader
Bruce J. Avolio and Peter Ong
Executive coaching, as a senior leader development tool, does not appear to be well utilised, nor to have been systematically tested for impact, in Asia. Executive coaches could provide the type of facilitation that can help leaders become more aware of their strengths and limitations and they can facilitate development in others. With the right expertise and methodology, such coaches could potentially help senior role models take advantage of significant points of contact with junior staff and turn these "moments that matter" into positive developmental experiences. Executive coaching is something which Asian leaders and organisations could attempt to weave into their strategic leadership development programmes. Most importantly, future work to test the impact of using coaching on leadership development is long overdue in both Asia and the West.
CONCLUSION
Are Asian leaders and their organisations ready for what has been labelled a looming "war for leadership talent"? The answer in our minds is absolutely not, at this point.
Strategic leadership development associated at the CEO level in Asia is far too passive and accidental. For Asia and its organisations to scale and sustain their rapid growth, they need to make leadership development more intentional, strategic and proactive.
It is time to define a new way of developing the Asian leader. We believe it is not too late to do so. This is what we believe, looking ahead.
• Over the next decade, the growth of Asian cities and their organisations will lead to increasing competition for strong and able talent. There is no time to lose. Asian cities and organisations that aggressively attract and develop the best leadership talent sooner will be much better positioned to weather and win the "war for leadership talent". This means having accurate tools to identify, select, hire, promote and develop raw talent and these tools do exist.
• Leadership development should commence earlier in an employee's career (especially if they have leadership potential). Our study clearly indicates that early life events trigger significant understanding and change that better positions talented individuals for growth and for future leadership roles. Many of the CEOs in the study took a long time to derive leadership lessons despite the insights of experience. This is more likely to be the case when an organisation lacks strategic leadership development support. We need to better understand how teachable moments accelerate leadership development, whether they can be systematically created, and then to methodically apply them organisationally to accelerate leadership development.
• Organisations must be more strategic and intentional in designing and implementing formal leadership development and succession management programmes. They will need to balance the formal with the informal. Leaders must be on the lookout for, and make much better use of anchoring events to develop leaders in their organisations. Such leaders also must be measured and rewarded for developing future leadership talent; otherwise they will simply not allocate the required time and attention to do so.
• We do not see significant growth ahead for traditional training interventions or standard leadership development workshops. Instead, there will be a trend towards highly customised (to the organisation) and highly individualised (to the leader) leadership development interventions that are deeply embedded in organisations, psychologically meaningful to the leader, and strongly supported by information technology.
• As cities in Asia become more successful along with their respective organisations, there will be increased pressure to develop managers and leaders who have a global mindset. The workforce will become increasingly diverse and more difficult to lead and manage across a complex set of cultural values. The global workforce (including in Asia) is already demonstrating an increased emphasis on individualism and on achieving greater personal meaning in life and work. The new workforce will require greater flexibility at work, and will demand to be much better informed about how decisions are made generally and about them in particular.
• As a consequence of generational differences, there will be increasing pressure on leaders to be more transparent with their followers and to proactively share leadership responsibilities and authority. The new workforce will be more keen to question their leaders, especially when they feel that such questioning is justified. Asian leaders and their organisations should therefore develop a new range of leadership capabilities, building an engaging and winning culture to attract and retain talent. We predict that senior leaders will spend a lot more time and energy to develop their followers into leaders, while emotionally engaging their high potential followers in the process.
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