It’s time to rethink 3 popular leadership development tools
Over the past 20+ years, I’ve used a wide variety of leadership development tools. I’ve found many of them useful, but I have also seen them create unintended negative consequences. I’m rethinking when and how I would recommend these three tools for leadership development to my clients.
360-degree leadership development tools: promising and problematic
Here’s how it works. You’re a boss, an HR partner or a coach. You want to learn about a leader’s strengths and weaknesses. You want a full picture. So, together with the leader, you create a list of people with whom they work: their boss, their peers, and their subordinates. Using an online survey, interviews or both, you gather data about how others see and evaluate the leader. You promise respondents their replies are confidential. The leader will not know who said what. You synthesize the data and share it back to the leader.
When I first learned about 360-degree leadership development tools in business school, I thought this approach was one of the scariest things I’d ever heard of. A bunch of people are going to tell me what they really think of me? And I won’t know who said what? Yikes!
It turns out the process is not usually as scary as I feared. Often, much of the feedback is very positive, and the negatives can be useful for creating development objectives.
BUT, there are two big problems with this tool.
The first is how the feedback is delivered. When an online survey is used, I have seen computer-generated, written summaries just handed to the leader to digest. Since most leaders hold themselves to excruciatingly high standards, they tend to focus only on the negative feedback. This can be devastating and undermine their self-confidence. For any 360-degree feedback process or other professional development tools for leadership, it is essential that the results are delivered by a trained professional who is skilled in guiding people to understand and utilize the feedback they receive.
The second problem is more insidious. If you want your leadership team to work in a climate of trust, where people are open with each other and hold each other accountable, why on earth would you use a process that encourages people to talk behind each other’s back? I’m not advocating “radical candor,” which in my experience is a code phrase for cruelty. But surely it’s better to help employees speak with each other directly and constructively about what works well and where there are problems.
When I worked in a consulting firm, I was asked to complete a 360-degree survey on one of my colleagues. I liked and respected him, but he demonstrated a certain behavior I found irritating. I wrote that critique in the comments section of his feedback. And then I thought, “Gail, you have never told him that you don’t like this behavior. Don’t be a chicken — go and talk with him about it.” So, I did. I told him I had written that comment and we had a good conversation about his behavior and why it bugged me. That interaction strengthened our relationship, and he stopped doing the annoying behavior.
I realize that people don’t always feel comfortable or safe to give others direct feedback. But surely we should be encouraging people to do that as much as possible, rather than relying on a tool which hides the source of the feedback.
What gets lost in high-potential leadership programs
A company wants to identify its most talented leaders who have the potential to move up to more responsible roles. When they have been selected, this cohort of “hi-pos” is provided with specialized experiences to accelerate their leadership development. Hi-po programs are considered among the best leadership development tools. Exposure to and mentorship from senior leaders, tailored training courses, participation in special project teams and opportunities to network widely across the organization are examples of elements in a hi-po program.
Once again, this sounds like a great idea. Invest company resources in the people who are most likely to rise to the top. Help them rapidly gain the skills and relationships they need to move into new roles successfully.
BUT, there are two problems.
First, how do you design the selection process? Potential is not the same as performance. How is the company going to determine which leaders have the most potential? Sadly, in many cases, the selection process is highly biased. Participants may be chosen because they are popular. Or because they remind the senior leaders of themselves. This can result in discrimination by gender, race, or other irrelevant factors. And it may overlook the genius who is quietly doing brilliant work and could be the next CEO.
While there are tools designed to measure potential, they are often not used. And like almost all psychological measures, they are blunt instruments that can be misleading.
The second problem is the cultural impact of a hi-po program. Often the selection process is not transparent, so people don’t know why they were or were not chosen. This can lead to resentment and envy. It can demotivate those who were not selected. It can poison the relationship between the chosen few and the others.
What’s the alternative? Well-designed customized individual leadership development tools and plans. If companies have a good process for providing their employees with regular performance feedback, that feedback can then be tied to specific developmental opportunities. Many companies do this when someone is in trouble. They are put on a performance improvement plan (PIP) that requires them to show improvement in their problematic behavior by a certain date. Why not have PIPs for everyone, helping them to grow from good to better to great?
Do personality type tests tell the full story?
Many popular leadership assessment tools tell you what “type” you are as well as other people’s types. StrengthsFinder, now called Clifton Strengths, is a popular example. You learn your top five strengths. Some examples: Achiever, Empathy, Learner, Ideation and Fairness, plus many others. The idea is that playing to your strengths, and knowing others’ strengths, will lead to greater success.
Another well-known example is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). This tool categorizes people on four dimensions: introversion/extraversion, intuition/sensing, thinking/feeling and judgment/perception. These four dimensions can be combined in 16 ways, which are the Myers-Briggs Types. I’ve used this tool many times to help team members learn about each other’s preferences and communicate effectively.
There are many other assessment tools for leadership development that tell you your “type.” Each one provides a framework for understanding yourself and others. So what’s the problem? They can lead to labeling and stereotyping yourself and others. People who score in the same category on any of these assessments are not all the same. In fact, they will differ profoundly from each other. Knowing someone’s score can lead to assuming you know everyone you need to know about them, which is a big mistake.
Know when, where to use leadership development tools
Should we stop using these assessment tools for leadership development? I don’t think so. But I do think they are overused. Don’t use an assessment tool until you are very clear about the question you are trying to answer. Don’t use tools unless you know they have a solid research basis. (A psychologist can help you figure this out.) Use an expert to provide the feedback, someone who will emphasize the variability of people and the uniqueness of each human being.
These three leadership development tools — 360-degree feedback, high-potential leadership programs and “type” assessment tools — should be used with caution and finesse. They can be useful, but they can also be destructive. What should a thoughtful leader do? Consult an expert who can help you decide when and if any of these tools will be valuable to your business. And then use that expert to help you maximize the benefits and limit the dangers.
Want to know more and discuss when using coaching as a leadership development tool makes sense? Get in touch with me at ggolden@gailgoldenconsulting.com.
