systematicHR

How does your HR organization take responsibility for nurturing your high potentials?

• Launch a formal, high-level succession-planning conference for senior executives facilitated by corporate HR and outside experts; outline the leadership development process; and cascade it through the company.
• Create leadership development programs that fill holes in your company’s talent portfolio to ensure a deep bench for critical positions in the firm.
• Let HR create tools and facilitate their use, but require the business units to own the leadership development activities.
• Have the board oversee all leadership development initiatives, and insist on continual communication by CEOs and other senior managers on their commitment to leadership development.
• Reshuffle rising stars throughout the company, taking care that A players are exchanged for other A players.
• Make sure that your leadership development program is aligned with your strategy, reinforces your company’s brand, and has support from your employees. ((Jeffrey M. Cohn, Rakesh Khurana, and Laura Reeves, October 2005. “A Leadership Development Checklist.” Retrieved from http://hbswk.hbs.edu on March 11, 2006.))
  

I’m sticking to my guns and saying that HR does not have the core skillsets or relationships to reach out to operational businesses to manage talent and HR strategies like leadership development. As HBS states:

But at companies that are good at growing leaders, operating managers, not HR executives, are at the front line of planning and development. In fact, many senior executives now hold their line managers directly responsible for these activities. In this worldview, it is part of the line manager’s job to recognize his subordinates’ developmental needs, to help them cultivate new skills, and to provide them opportunities for professional development and personal growth. Managers must do this even if it means nudging their rising stars into new functional areas or business units. They must mentor emerging leaders, from their own and other departments, passing on important knowledge and providing helpful evaluations and feedback. The operating managers’ own evaluations, development plans, and promotions, in turn, depend on how successfully they nurture their subordinates. ((Jeffrey M. Cohn, Rakesh Khurana, and Laura Reeves, February 27 2006. “Take Responsibility for Rising Stars.” Retrieved from http://hbswk.hbs.edu on March 11, 2006.))

It’s no surpise that operational leaders are expected to identify and nurture the next generation of leaders. However, HBS also states:

Many executives believe that leadership development is a job for the HR department. This may be the single biggest misconception they can have. ((ibid))

The problem is that it is indeed HR’s job to manage leadership development. We have the tools and the data to do it. While we don’t interact with the high potentials each and every day, we should be interacting with the operational managers to help them identify high performers with the right skills. We should be coaching these managers on how leaders are developed. We should be ensuring that the employer brand is well represented when the development actions are taken. I don’t disagree with HBS, but HR cannot allow this critical aspect of talent management to slip from our realm of influence.

Also see the series on Leadership.