Leadership Research
Simply being given the title of a leader in an organization is not sufficient for that person to actually "become" a leader. In fact, although many of us assume that getting a promotion to a leadership role is all that is necessary to becoming a leader, research done at Emerge reveals some surprising results.
Leadership Crisis
In a 2004 study of leadership done among several Fortune 1000 companies, we were able to uncover a startling crisis in the quality of leadership. Analysis of interviews, surveys, and focus groups revealed that 48% of people with leadership titles are seen as still operating as individual contributors. That is, these people think, feel, value, and behave the way competent individual contributors would, even when they are expected to lead others.
Surprisingly, only 25% of people with leadership titles were seen as having fully transitioned into the leadership role. Even though they may have individual responsibilities to get individual work done, these people were somehow able to "approach" their work in ways that not only got their work done, but also led and guided others so that they could more effectively get their work done too.
The remaining 27% of leaders were seen as being stuck, somewhere in "transition" between approaching their work the way they used to, as an individual contributor, and approaching it the way they are expected to as a leader.
Recently, the same companies studied in 2004 participated a follow-up study. Out of these same companies, over 3,000 individuals were given the Transition Track Assessment(TM), and solicited feedback from their immediate managers, as to how they were doing in approaching their work as leaders are expected to. These Assessments were given prior to individuals participating in The Leadership Transition(TM) workshop, and used to develop their own individual Transition Action Plan(TM), or TAP (TM).
An analysis of these 3,000 Transition Track Assessments revealed that 47% of all managers are still seen as operating as individual contributors. This number is surprisingly consistent with the previously found percentage from 2004.
However, the most striking finding was that in this study, the percentage of leaders who had fully transitioned had dropped down to 16% from the previous 25%. The remainder, 37%, were stuck in transition.
Although many things may be contributing to the overall patterns and trends found in these studies, what is surprising is that the leaner organizations become, the fewer people there are who are fully thinking, feeling, valuing, and acting like leaders. One is left to wonder, "If all our leaders are acting like individual contributors, what is NOT getting done in our organizations?"
Time To Transition
What is clear from these studies is that, even left to their own devices, many leaders still manage to make the transition from thinking, feeling, valuing, and behaving like individual contributors, to thinking, feeling, valuing, and behaving like leaders are expected to. Although this percentage is much smaller than most organizations would like to experience with their people, the good news is that some still make the transition. What needs to be remembered, however, is that multiple sources, including our own data and experience tell us that the transition usually takes 3 to 5 years to complete.
When nothing else intervenes to assist these leaders, the time it takes them to become as effective as we need them in our organizations is significant. Without assistance to reduce this time, imagine just how much time, energy, opportunity, or capital gets wasted by organizations, teams, and individuals who are being led by ineffective leaders!
If 84% of all leaders in today's organizations have not yet fully transitioned to the role of leader, then even the most conservative calculation of the costs are significant.
Research shows that an individual contributor who fully transitions into the role of leader will more than double his or her contribution to the organization.
What Is To Be Done?
Most organizations struggle with this leadership crisis. If you or your organization are concerned with the extent to which leaders in your organization have made this transition, you may be wondering what can be done. Emerge has created a process and set of interventions that have a long demonstrated history of success.
If you would like to learn more about what you can do, please contact us for more information.
Contact Info
| Phone: | 208.732.7362 |
| Toll Free: | 877.275.4557 |
| Email: | info@EmergeGroup.com |
| Mail: | 1122 Eastland Dr. Suite 1 Twin Falls, ID 83301 U.S.A. |