As TomorrowToday we have the privilege to both design and participate in Leadership Development Programmes (LDPs) throughout the world. We work internationally with some of fineness business schools and blue-chip multi-nationals in this arena. We have seen a great deal: some of it excellent, a lot of it very poor. It is an area of significant spend for the client and there is a real need to get a worthwhile return on investment on your LDP.
Based on our observations and participation, here are six things, shared as a series, that you need to consider when it comes to designing or looking for a strategic partner in the delivery of your LDP:
# 5: Curiosity and questions are more important than certainty and answers
Any leadership development process should be designed to challenge and stimulate your thinking. If you emerge with deeper questions as a result of your process it will have done a good job. Thinking is the place where all intelligent action begins and the translation of this thinking into workable solutions and answers forms the follow-up to the formal learning. This will be your responsibility outside of the formal learning time. You should hear the term ‘rethink’ a lot throughout your programme. ‘Time to think’ and the cultivation of that habit should form part of what you do in such programmes. Sadly, it seldom is embraced and some of the reasons it isn’t is the pressure of the participants themselves, unfamiliar with such reflective disciplines and practice, rebel against its inclusion. It is a costly mistake. Learning how to think as a leader is the means by which you are able to challenge your assumptions and theory. Mark Twain said that, ‘it isn’t what we don’t know that gets us into trouble but rather, what we know for sure that just ain’t so”