Mercer|Mettl reveals 49 percent of organizations conduct leadership development to upskill existing leaders

Nearly half of the organisations treat upskilling and reskilling of their new and existing leaders as the primary objective of their leadership development programs, according to the ‘Leadership Development Trends 2019’ by Mercer|Mettl. 

Around one-fifth (20 percent) use it to identify individuals with excellent leadership skills and 18 percent of organizations use it to enhance the interpersonal and behavioural skills of the participants, to help them to become more effective leaders. 

Siddhartha Gupta, CEO, Mercer|Mettl said, “A number of leadership development experts comprising over 500 respondents from more than 200 organizations have informed the findings of our ‘Leadership Development Trends 2019’ report. Through this report, our aim is to underscore the challenges faced by organizations, as well as the best practices that can help them make a difference.” 

Top leadership development challenges

Majority of organizations (80 percent) are currently facing a leadership talent shortage. While most organizations struggle to develop a team of effective leaders, those that do manage to create strong leadership face the risk of attrition. 

When asked about the most prominent challenge with their leadership development process, 30 percent of organizations also highlighted the inability/reluctance of their senior management to recognize it as a critical business imperative. 

Top leadership development best practices

The implementation of competency-based leadership development emerged as the dominant best practice that organizations are currently using to create great leaders and maintain the leadership success rate.

As per 23 percent of the respondents, the ability to drive business growth is the hallmark of a successful leader. 18 percent of organizations posited the ability to lead people and the ability to align personal vision with the organizational objective as the must-have qualities in a leader.

Further, 16 percent believed that good leaders are effective change drivers, while 14 percent believed that they encourage ethical and environmentally sustainable management practices. More than one-tenth (11 percent) of surveyed organizations identified successful leaders as those who possess the ability to negotiate and build partnerships.