It’s not surprising that baby boomers (those born between 1946 and 1964) comprise a significant number of today’s middle managers and senior leaders. However, it may surprise you that 76 million baby boomers are approaching retirement; by 2010, half of them will be between the ages of 54 and 64. When they retire, they’ll take their deep knowledge and experience with them. Sobering, isn’t it?

How will your organization accelerate the transfer of leadership to the next generation? How can prospective leaders best be prepared for those roles critical to the future success of your organization?

Focused assessment and development activities systematically engage boomers in the transfer of knowledge and accelerate the development of your organization’s next generation of leaders. This, in turn, will prepare your organization for success despite demographic and economic pressures. While those pressures may not be in your control, maximizing your efforts to develop internal talent is. Ensuring the success of your organization from one group of leaders to the next should not be left to chance.

Consider the following best practices:

1. Conduct personalized assessments. A meaningful and thorough leadership assessment should include a deep understanding of the executive’s education and experience, their interests and achievements outside of work, and their personal goals and ambitions. Taking a holistic approach to the executive assessment will ensure that their strengths will be fully leveraged, promoting ongoing growth and leadership development.  
2. Link development goals to organizational objectives. Development goals don’t exist in a vacuum. Each leader’s development goals must be directly linked to current business imperatives. All assessment and development activities should be tracked by one individual in your organization to ensure the relevance of those efforts to current organizational objectives. If there are patterns of gaps among key leaders, executive education can be leveraged as a tool to accelerate the filling of those gaps.  
3. Define specific action steps. Once development goals are identified, get help identifying 6-8 specific action steps the leaders might take to achieve each goal. This approach allows the leaders the freedom to customize action steps that are the most appealing and realistic for them and their unique circumstances. When it comes to grooming top talent, the cookbook approach will never work. An innovative and creative coach can help customize an approach that will keep even the most dynamic leader engaged.
4. Provide leadership support. The direct supervisor of the executive being developed plays a key role in creating and refining the development plan. This supervisor should be fully briefed on the results of the leadership assessment and the related development goals. The supervisor must be instrumental in helping to prioritize those goals. Furthermore, the supervisor needs to stay involved as the internal “sponsor” who accepts partial accountability for the executive’s ongoing development. The executive coach can act as a source of support for the supervisor should development efforts get derailed or lose momentum.  
5. Practice new skills and behaviors. Practice is critical for successful leadership development initiatives. Without practice, leaders default to past behaviors. Action learning is a targeted leadership development approach whereby executives participate in real-life, business-based projects and activities aimed specifically at developing those gaps identified in their leadership assessment. Integral to the action learning projects are ongoing opportunities for guided reflection along with peer and supervisor feedback.  
6. Schedule regular follow-up activities. Continuous feedback is a key component of effective leadership development plans. Executive coaches provide supportive and specific suggestions as the leaders experiment with new behaviors and skills. Direct supervisors become key sources of “real-world” feedback related to the goals and action steps created. Regular feedback that relates specifically to identified and agreed-upon development goals ensures that those goals stay top of mind. As goals are achieved, new ones can be identified and put into the development plan, thus ensuring that it remains a living and breathing document.

Thoughtful and intentional leadership development initiatives provide organizations with a more secure footing with which to face impending baby boomer retirements. It will also create “organizational stickiness,” whereby talented individuals will continue to feel both challenged and appreciated as a result of customized and continuous development opportunities. For more information on leadership development best practices, feel free to give us a call. 

Five Benefits of Customized Leadership Development

• Top talent stays with your organization.
• Your organization becomes an employer of choice and attracts new talent.
• You build a leadership pipeline for the future; multiple people are prepared to take on leadership roles, and you won’t run the risk of hiring high-priced talent that doesn’t “fit” with your organization’s culture.
• Development has a positive impact on the leaders being developed, their supervisors, and their organizations.
• Individual leadership goals are aligned with key business objectives.