The Value of Aligning Leader and Career Development

Helping leaders manage the career development aspects of their growth will help you engage and retain high potential talent.

• Talent shortage – Right Management research indicates that 87% of organizations do not believe they have future leaders identified for critical roles. The majority of companies I work with are either dealing with a shortage of talent in critical roles today or anticipating being in that situation within the next few years due to impending retirements. This puts a great deal of pressure on HR leaders to attract, retain, develop, and promote / select the right talent. In many cases, critical roles are becoming more specialized which makes this even more challenging.
• Career mobility – Having the right talent is only part of the equation; you also need to have the right talent where and when you need it. Preparing identified successors or your talent pool needs to be about much more than the skills and competencies required for the next role. Individuals need to be personally prepared to make that career jump, well-positioned from a networking and relationship standpoint and, in some cases, ready to move themselves and their family to another part of the world.  All this takes time, effort and coaching.
• Engagement and retention – Career development isn’t what it used to be. Organizations continue to flatten, so there are fewer promotion opportunities available. Retaining all your top talent isn’t realistic, but you want to keep them for as long as you can, and ensure they are fully engaged throughout that time. Helping your top talent find ways to grow within their roles or extend the breadth of their capabilities through lateral moves can also be part of the career development equation.
• Entrepreneurship, the "Career for Me" approach – While the company certainly plays an important role, a key tenet of modern career development is employees taking ownership for their success. While there are benefits to employees in this model, it’s a little like deciding to start your own business in that you won’t be very successful unless you develop the skills of the entrepreneur.  The fact is that most leaders are not equipped to manage their careers as well as they could without some type of support and training. It simply hasn’t been part of how companies have traditionally developed their talent, which is why candidates from outside of the company are usually far better at interviewing and articulating their value proposition than internal candidates.