The recession changes the focus of many HR Processes, but the leadership development should stay the same. As the organization fights for its life, the leadership development is one of the key success components for the future.
The leadership development is important as the leaders cannot be bought on the market. You can see an excellent guy in one organization and he can easily fail in your organization. There is no Tesco full of prefabricated leaders available 24 hours a day. Some executive search companies offer the service of finding a leader for the organization, but it is a service with no guarantee of the acceptance of the target group – the employees of the organization.
The leaders have to live with the organization for some time to become real leaders. The newcomers cannot be accepted by the employees as the leaders as they miss the most important leadership value – the trust of the group.
The recession creates the pressure to cut the costs of the organization. As the leadership development is very expensive and the investment is not visible for a long time, the top management can cut the costs as the damage is not seen immediately.
The damage will be seen in the moment of the urgent need. The real leader cannot stop investment to its own successor and has to pay a close attention to its potential successors, even in the recession, when the organization fights for its own life.
When the need to deliver a new leader comes, it is too late. The process of searching a new leader for the organization is long and time consuming. Jack Welsch spent almost 10 years of his career to find his successor and till the last moment, three potential successors were on the list. General Electric is a huge organization, with excellent HR Processes and it took 10 years to find a new leader. And the leader was born internally, not externally.
The management cannot call the executive search company with a single wish “Deliver to us a new leader by the end of the next week.” The external leader can be recognized and brought to the organization, but it is the evolving leader and it will take a long journey to make him a real leader for the organization. The organization will suffer from missing its real leader for quite a long time and the costs and damages will be enormous.
The need to cut costs is huge, but the role of Human Resources is in protecting the future of the organization. When the HRM Function agrees to cut investment into the leadership development, it signs the bill to destroy the organization sooner or later. Probably sooner.
The HRM Function has to keep the focus of the top management on the leadership development, as the organization has to give the priority to the leadership development. The leadership development is very important in the recession as the organization can change and the new leader is necessary.
