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Leadership Development

5 things to stop expecting from a mentor

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Finding — and successfully connecting with — a mentor is a frustrating experience for people who are searching for someone to provide guidance, proffer wisdom, open doors and course-correct them when they veer off track.

What I learned, especially in my entrepreneurial years, is that the first step is to check one’s own expectations and instincts. More than 10 years after my early mentorship experiences, I feel savvy enough to understand what a work adviser does and doesn’t do — especially since now, as a two-time founder, I’ve been on both sides of the mentor/mentee dynamic.

Some common misconceptions tend to guide would-be mentees in their search for a work guru. My advice: Stop looking for what you think a mentor should look like, and you will be more likely to find what you need.

1. “Mentor” is not its own relationship category.

A mentor is someone who knows more than you or has done more than you or has experiences from which you can learn. A mentor is not someone upon whom you need to formally confer the title “mentor” to begin a relationship. Don’t require a purity test to confirm the mentor/mentee arrangement. Advisory relationships work when they happen naturally, and they fail when forced. Forget the labels: Absorb wisdom from brilliant people in whatever form it comes.

Karina Castagna, an executive at Amgen, a board president of the Healthcare Women’s Association and board member at Ventura County Food Share, has mentored dozens of women. She says the mentees who benefit most are the ones with substantive questions, who aren’t as concerned about defining the relationship — which puts pressure on the mentor.

2. Your mentor is not your ‘ride-or-die.’

Too many people end up disappointed when they realize their mentor has set limits and does not want to take on risk. A longtime mentor of mine encouraged me for years to start a business, saying he’d love to help if I ever did. When I launched my company in 2015, I asked him to serve as an adviser and/or investor, and he (graciously and promptly) excused himself from both scenarios.

The experience taught me that even strong relationships have boundaries. But just because your mentor is probably not willing to circumnavigate the Ninth Circle of Hell with you doesn’t invalidate the relationship. Mine shared valuable advice and insight into the world of prestigious MBA programs and companies that I would not have had access to on my own at the time. They’re still rooting for you — just from the stands.

3. Your mentor cannot address all aspects of life.

A mentor should have knowledge to share: advice on certain experiences, personal stories relevant to yours or ways of thinking that can influence your decision-making and problem-solving. But rarely will a mentor be your confidante, emotional support system, knowledge base, brainstorm partner and guidance counselor all at once. Choose one.

Castagna says building a personal friendship can enrich a mentorship dynamic. But, she clarifies: “It is important for the mentee to prioritize discussing tactical and tangible issues the mentor can help solve. Inviting their mentor to a birthday party may feel less daunting to some people than making a professional ask, but I prefer the direct approach as it allows me to create the most value for my mentees.”

4. Creating opportunities for you is not your mentor’s job.

Unless your mentor is a supervisor or someone senior in your organization, the expectation that they will make introductions and open doors is a romantic — but misguided — one. Instead, mentors prefer empowering their mentees to carve out their own opportunities.

Stephanie Gay, a vice president at change-management, learning and development firm Intellezy, recalls a consulting mentee who requested an introduction to an industry executive. Gay knew her mentee did not yet have the confidence to impress this exec in the 30 seconds she would be given.

“Instead of making an introduction right away for a single shot that probably wouldn’t go well, I instructed my mentee on effective outreach, positioning her strengths in emails, and finding common ground with a target contact so that she could get herself in the door,” she says. “She mastered these skills and lined up a half-dozen meetings for herself — way more than any mentor could have done for her.”

Occasionally, a mentor will provide access to their contacts, but in the meantime, take their guidance and try learning to fish. Chances are, as soon as you learn and don’t need it anymore, that’s when said intro might just be forthcoming.

5. A mentor will not deliver for you until you prove worthy.

You are not worthy of mentorship just because you decide so. Mentorship is a two-way street, and a mentor wants to grow with her mentee. Fact: A mentor needs to gain something from the interaction, whether it’s a vicarious experience of exciting new projects, the fulfillment of developing a new leader, or the gratification of redeploying knowledge and experience in a new way.

A great mentor simply won’t be interested in allocating time and energy to a protégé who isn’t demonstrating growth potential, interesting work possibilities and the promise of a fun ride ahead. As Sheryl Sandberg suggests: “Shift your thinking from, ‘If I get a mentor, I will excel’ to, ‘If I excel, I will get a mentor.’”

This article was originally published by Business Insider.

Collaborative leadership: An antidote for a turbulent world

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For several years now, many management authors have been discussing how the volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous world in which we live requires a new set of leadership skills. The health and financial crisis brought on by covid-19 has greatly amplified this. On the current global stage, it is largely women who are standing out as effective leaders, praised by Forbes and other media publications for their handling of the pandemic. As Nicholas Kristof noted in The New York Times, “It’s not that the leaders who best managed the virus were all women. But those who bungled the response were all men, and mostly a particular type: authoritarian, vainglorious and blustering.”

It is not so much gender that is a differentiator in leadership success during these VUCA times; what is really at play is a fundamental difference in style. Men are demonstrating traditional command-and-control leadership while women are demonstrating collaborative leadership.
What is it about these two very different leadership styles that cause failure or success in turbulent times? Based on our research and more than 25 years as leadership development practitioners, we think it boils down to how power and information are shared.

For many years, the “hero” leaders in industry tended to be strong, forceful, charismatic and authoritarian. This traditional leadership model is often associated with what Carol Dweck labeled a fixed mindset. The fixed mindset believes that we have a certain amount of ability that is fixed and unchangeable, and that people rise to the top because they have the greatest abilities and are the “smartest person in the room.” As a result, the traditional CEO approach is to gather information, analyze the situation or problem using their superior ability, and then direct everyone to carry out their plans.

Yet, with the coronavirus, we are dealing with a novel disease for which no one has clear answers. The pandemic has presented us with both a health crisis and a business/economic crisis that include a large amount of uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. No one person has the necessary knowledge and experience to solve these problems alone — it requires multiple people with different kinds of expertise and the ability to work together to create novel solutions.

1. Assemble a group with diverse expertise and experience.

The collaborative CEO approach is to evaluate a variety of different sources of information and expertise and incorporate other people into the decision-making process. It’s an approach that draws from diverse perspectives, thereby stimulating collective problem-solving. The collaborative CEO can do this because they don’t feel a need to be “the smartest person in the room” who knows all the answers.

In our research with collaborative male leaders, a key characteristic that emerged was their ability to temper their ego. In side-stepping ego, they focus outside of themselves and beyond their self-interests. Because they are not striving to prove themselves and bolster their position of authority, they are able to be vulnerable. By admitting they do not have all the answers, they become more approachable, attracting a network of support.

2. Share power and information liberally.

In a traditional organizational structure, role responsibilities and levels of authority are clearly spelled out. When issues or problems occur, the information is pulled together and referred to the person who has the appropriate authority to make a decision. In crisis conditions, decision-making is often pushed higher up in the organization. But as we have seen during this pandemic, leaders using this model were too slow to act.

Collaborative leaders organize differently. They share power and information with their teams. Information flows easily and doesn’t get hung up in the bottlenecks created by “need-to-know” hierarchies. This information flow breaks away from the paradigm of a linearly controlled process to a matrixed connective process so that things can happen fast and everyone can quickly get on the same page to take action.

With continual dialogue up, down and across the organization, there is a level of coordination in how people’s thinking evolves because they are hearing the same thing at the same time. There is no staccato transmission of information where some people are more in-the-know and have had more time to digest and process what they’ve heard. In addition to accelerating action, the perpetual conversation allows for a constant infusion of new information and ideas from a broad, diverse circle of people and for changing direction when necessary.

This efficiency of information flow and speed to take action is often a challenge in a traditional authoritarian-led structure. People at the ground level who observe a problem can hesitate to raise the issue for fear of telling their senior leaders something they don’t want to hear. As Amy Edmonson points out, employees are often afraid to speak up or ask a question in this kind of culture because they might be punished for their comments or look stupid. If a person makes a mistake, the tendency is to be unwilling to admit it or to look for someone else to blame to avoid the criticism or punishment. This environment generally leads to inaction as subordinates will sit back and wait for instruction rather than take a risk and jump to action.

Further reinforcing this culture of inaction is that leaders in these organizations are often viewed as infallible. When they project an image of being in total command, not showing any mistakes or vulnerability, it sends a message that subordinates should behave the same way. Making a mistake is viewed as an indicator of a person not being smart enough.

3. Empathize, listen and relate.

Collaborative leaders create a culture of trust where people will speak up, share ideas and not be muted by fear. They build connections with and among people at a personal level by tapping into our shared humanity. They create common ground that diminishes hierarchical differences and values inclusiveness and empathy, which helps people feel more secure during crisis and change. Collaborative leaders ask questions, listen and respect all. And in doing so, they communicate “I care, I’m interested and I understand.” They establish a sense of community and belonging.

Key takeaways

During times of change and turbulence, in stark view during the pandemic, it is collaborative leaders who are the most effective. Foundationally, they leave ego out of the proceedings and thereby can reach out for help. They utilize and involve people who have relevant expertise in analyzing the issues and making a decision. They connect with people on a personal level, they connect others and they are inclusive, offsetting the isolating feelings associated with losing our familiar world and venturing into the great unknown future. Their openness engenders trust and a sense of security in those they lead. As a result, collaborative leaders are successfully navigating the turbulence of the pandemic by quickly assessing the situation, acting promptly and decisively, adapting as circumstances continue to develop, and gaining the respect and cooperation of their people.

Video: Adopting a coaching mindset for leadership

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Video editing by Shaan Chadha and Colin Hohman.

Traditional managers and leaders tell you what to do. But adopting a coaching mindset in leadership — asking rather than telling — opens a lot of doors for leaders and their teams, says Magdalena Mook, CEO at the International Coaching Federation. When she tried this with her team, she saw nearly automatic buy-in from everyone when she asked for their input.

6 ways executive education will never be the same

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It’s broadly accepted that COVID-19 has accelerated digital transformation efforts for most organizations by approximately two to three years. From client-facing activities to administrative functions, a range of platforms and tools have quickly been assembled to help workers collaborate, communicate, innovate and actively maintain their levels of performance at every turn.

Such efforts have –– perhaps somewhat surprisingly –– had the overall effect of expanding rather than limiting workforce potential. Case in point: The first research out of Harvard on productivity during the pandemic indicates that, on average, the American workday has been extended by nearly 49 minutes (essentially an hour of extra work time).

For the executive education industry, these developments have significant implications. In a world where in-person strategy sessions, weekend retreats and immersive seminars have long been the status quo, alternatives for distance learning suddenly became necessary overnight. Yet where traditional education models might be suffering, executive education is looking at a brand new era that has some unexpected advantages.

As executive education deals with the onslaught of COVID-19, experts suggest benefits can actually be enhanced by online learning (as opposed to merely being reproduced in a socially distanced format). “Executive education previously provided a number of different values for participants, including the learning, networking and credentials from top schools,” says Robert Hsiung, China CEO of executive education tech company ERUDITUS, adding, “As exec ed moves to virtual-distance models, the focus has been magnified on the learning.” The COVID-19 era, Hsiung notes, appears to have placed more emphasis on solution-driven techniques than ever before. This amounts to a major win for individuals looking to develop their executive skill set.

But beyond this obvious victory for learners, the shift in executive learning development seems to offer advantages for organizations as well. Indeed, Shaun Rozyn, managing director of Darden Executive Education at the University of Virginia, insists the benefits of virtual executive education models will be twofold: “Learners will benefit from more options, opportunity and personalization as learning is better curated to truly empower organizational outcomes. Similarly, organizations will benefit from more impactful and packaged content and deployment options.”

With this in mind, we’ve provided a brief overview of the potential benefits of post-coronavirus executive education curricula for a) executives in search of new tools and b) educational organizations hoping to impart their knowledge and improve business processes. Note: Many of these advantages, though they’ve emerged during COVID-19, will also apply once the crisis subsides. (That is, there’s no set timeline for reaping some of these unanticipated rewards.)

COVID-19 reality benefits for executive learners

Virtual executive education prepares learners to meet the moment. Online collaboration in the age of COVID has exposed a wide variety of organizational vulnerabilities. Executives whose long list of daily to-dos isolated them from activities further down the pyramid, for example, may now be suddenly aware of serious labor distribution problems, thanks to virtual task management tools such as Slack or Trello.

But the immediacy of online executive education can help alert learners to these types of problems and provide them with the tools they’ll need to react in near-real time. This responsiveness will prove invaluable in an environment where constant change is the only norm. “Many individuals must reskill to meet the demands of today and succeed,” Mary Carey, regional director for the Americas at INSEAD Education, observes, adding, “Virtual executive education future-proofs executives against becoming obsolete in a time when business is changing so rapidly.”

Distanced education means more options. In an instant, COVID leveled the playing field for all exec ed programs, no matter their reputation. With no exclusive getaways or exciting retreats to offer, programmers were obliged to focus even more intently on content and accessibility if they had any hope of standing out.

And, just like that, executive education became mostly a buyer’s market.

As Ashwin Damera, co-founder & CEO of ERUDITUS, notes, this shift means individuals in search of supplementary executive education have a lot to gain. In fact, Damera predicts three positive post-COVID outcomes for learners: “More online courses will be offered in open enrollment. This will make executive education more accessible to participants who cannot come to campus. [In addition] more online content will be blended into custom offerings. This will provide for better design, more flexibility and scalable learning solutions. [Finally,] more global participants can be reached by business schools, especially by offering courses in different languages. Again, this will dramatically improve access.”

Executive education online helps close the “skills transfer gap.” A 2019 Harvard Business Review article titled “The Future of Leadership Development” cited the “skills transfer gap” (i.e., the phenomenon whereby a thing that is learned is rarely implemented in real life) as one of the biggest complaints in the exec ed sphere. The explanation? As the article observes, research performed by cognitive, educational and applied psychologists suggests the answer lies in “the distance between where a skill is learned … and where it is applied.”

Here again, the immediacy of online learning can help. In addition to improving response times so executives can remain adaptable while the world is in flux, virtual executive education can bridge the skills transfer gap by offering easily accessible and highly scalable “learning solutions” on demand. Learners can effectively take on a new skill and then get busy applying it from the comfort of their home office, all with virtually no turnaround time. This means the likelihood that they’ll retain the information they’ve learned (and be able to use it in the future) will increase.

Post-COVID-19 benefits for executive education organizations

Executive education organizations now have an added competitive edge. In an environment characterized by uncertainty, extensive knowledge and careful preparation can be powerful weapons. Exec ed is now in the unique position of being able to offer both –– all while adhering to social distancing rules.

“Some organizations and businesses will use the current crisis to come out ahead of the competition [and] executive education is an effective lever to do so,” Carey notes. In other words: Executive learners will need every tool in their arsenal to take on the COVID-19 challenge and succeed –– and executive education can help them add to their weapons stockpile. More education means more options in the face of adversity, so it follows that more learners will want to invest in executive education solutions as the market absorbs the blow of COVID-19 and slowly moves toward recovery. This means executive education occupies a space many will be desperate to fill, which paves the way for a potential boom. And since exec solutions will be offered digitally, learners may be even more inclined to sign on, as the logistic demands will be low and the return on investment high.

Virtual executive education will attract even more learners. As your executive education solution adapts to our new reality, it simultaneously has the ability to broaden its scope. Just as virtual executive education models mean more accessibility for learners, digital transformation means a larger pool of potential participants for executive education organizations. As Damera mentioned above, COVID-19 has effectively brought executive education directly into our homes across the globe –– expanding executive learner horizons and extending executive education’s reach. If your organization wants its curriculum to attract more eyes and ears, COVID-19 just made that possible.

COVID-19 restrictions force a refocus on quality. With the bells and whistles of executive education removed, organizations have an opportunity to restructure their lesson plans and place even more emphasis on leadership development. Hsiung notes that, post-COVID-19, the ultimate deciding factor in choosing an executive education organization will be whether or not its curriculum can provide value. Organizations will therefore be obliged to streamline lessons into an online format and ensure workshops and seminars pack as much punch as possible. Translation? If you’ve always wanted to do a deep dive on a subject like game theory but found one-off events too restrictive, now’s your chance. Thanks to virtual transformation, every minute of your time can now be used for education. This can lead to more comprehensive learning models, which can enhance overall value and generate more interest.

Obviously, exec ed’s transitional phase will be ongoing, and much of the end result will be shaped by participants, so time will tell us more about where executive education can go in a post-pandemic era.

In the meantime, stay safe and keep learning.

Implicit bias affects us all

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As a chief learning officer, you likely have experience with leadership development programs. Based on your experience, what are some of the best traits of successful leaders? Once you have crafted your list of leadership characteristics, take a moment to consider how many of these traits would be characterized as masculine. Would this subtle, unconscious bias affect your objectivity when selecting candidates for your organization’s leadership development program?

Columbia business professor Frank Flynn and New York University professor Cameron Anderson conducted an experiment in which they provided a group of business students with copies of an identical resume (from a real successful businesswoman) and labeled some of the resume copies with the name Heidi and others with the name Howard. Although the resumes were identical, the business students rated Howard as competent, likeable and a good colleague. Meanwhile, Heidi was rated as competent, but also as aggressive, selfish and not a team player. The students went further to identify Heidi as someone they would not want to work with.

Implicit biases lead us to harbor expectations of people that include, but are not limited to, what organizational roles they would be best suited for and, maybe more important, how they would fit into these roles: “Without realizing it, you might be assuming that male co-workers are more objective, strong-willed, decisive, practical and assertive than women,” according to the 2018 article “Women in leadership roles: Fighting implicit bias” published by the Association of California School Administrators. “Too often, when women display these same characteristics, they are viewed as angry or bossy by their female colleagues.”

Bias and assessment in the workplace

This type of flawed individual assessment is rooted in implicit biases. The effects are seen throughout organizations, especially when it relates to employee evaluations. In a 2015 Harvard Business Review article titled “Reinventing Performance Management,” authors Marcus Buckingham and Ashley Goodall point to research conducted by Michael Mount, Steven Scullen and Maynard Goff and published in the Journal of Applied Psychology in 2000 as one of the most comprehensive on how we rate people: “Their study — in which 4,492 managers were rated by certain performance dimensions by two bosses, two peers, and two subordinates — revealed that 62 percent of the variance in ratings could be accounted for by individual raters’ peculiarities of perception.”

Almost every organization deploys some system of employee evaluations. However, since we do not perceive people, work product, productivity and interpersonal skills all in the exact same manner, evaluations are frequently a reflection on how we individually see the world instead of how the employee has performed. Your System 1 thinking can inadvertently lead you to unconscious, predetermined conclusions, which are cultivated and supported in a prophetic self-feeding loop fed by one of the most nefarious biases of all.

ALSO READ: Part 1: “Understanding implicit bias and its detriment to organizations.”

Confirmation bias — your tendency to search, interpret and seek out information that confirms your existing mental schemas, beliefs, attitudes and expectations — leads you to categorize people in ways that often are not intended. These unconscious mechanizations unknowingly reinforce the stereotypes we expect to see, further cementing the implicit bias that exists. For example, who pops into your brain when you hear the following words:

  • Nurse
  • Construction worker
  • Librarian
  • Truck driver

When you read the words “nurse” and “librarian,” did an image of a woman automatically enter your brain? Likewise, did an image of a man enter your head when you read the words “construction worker” and “truck driver”? Despite the fact that we know there are male nurses and librarians and female construction workers and truck drivers, these gender stereotypes have been reinforced over decades.

When people in your organization don’t fit neatly into your categories, it causes cognitive dissonance — a state in which existing beliefs are inconsistent with the evidence available. In seeking to remove the dissonance, the brain often finds evidence that matches current beliefs. A 1981 study conducted by scholars William F. Brewer and James C. Treyens demonstrates how we “notice and remember things that fit into our schemas but overlook and forget things that don’t,” according to a 2019 ThoughtCo.com article. Even if the evidence points to a different conclusion, you will be reluctant to accept that conclusion if the evidence goes against one of your established norms. “It can even cause people to overlook facts that contradict their pre-established ideas because they are still unconsciously seeking to confirm ideas they believe they already know,” according to a 2015 Next City article.

Not only does this kind of decision-making impact innovation — as like-minded people do not have the same creativity as those with different perspectives — but it unconsciously reinforces stereotypes, which leads to consequences in the workplace. “Unconscious bias leads us to form teams based on what we know, what we are most familiar with, and what we believe would give us the outcome we desire,” writes Forbes contributor Michael Brainard.

When System 1 takes over, your choices on who gets the opportunity is substantially impacted by the mental schemas and implicit associations that have been formed over a lifetime.

Implicit bias can be broken down into two categories: descriptive and prescriptive bias. “Descriptive bias is the labels we attach and associate with certain social groups and communities, and prescriptive bias is how they are expected to behave,” writes Forbes contributor Pragya Agarwal. “When someone does not conform to these prescribed roles and behaviors they can be penalized or punished.”

The role of the leader

An executive manager at a government organization had a realization during an implicit bias training session. As he reflected on his past actions and behaviors, he realized that though he was mentally committed to diversity, he had unconsciously expressed favoritism toward those he liked and enjoyed being around. Yet when critically reflecting, he realized that what he perceived was a “self-fulfilling prophecy” in which his favorite employees excelled and prospered while the rest were ignored and not perceived to be as valuable.

CLOs seek to cultivate a level playing field where everyone — no matter their race, age, gender or identity — has an opportunity to develop. But unwittingly, you could be creating more opportunities for those who you perceive as similar to you or for candidates who meet your perceived expectations of management.

Organizational cultures place an important role on the leadership of the executives. In many cases, these individuals set the tone for the entire organization. It is not unusual for CLOs to consciously and unconsciously accept the cues set by these leaders. Compliance with authority is something we all were taught from an early age. “For a significant part of an individual’s life, they are expected to accept and respect the authority of others within different hierarchical systems, originating within the family but also found in institutionalized organizations of authority such as schools and workplaces,” writes an unknown author in a University of Cambridge article, “Why Do People Obey Authority?” “With the internalization of obedience to authority also comes the notion of a system of rewards and punishments for obedience and deviance respectively.”

From the very first day of working for your organization, you started learning about what behaviors were and were not accepted. This, in turn, reinforced or established the mental schemas you needed to continue employment and, in some cases, thrive in your organization.

The more these schemas become entrenched in your automatic thinking processes, the more they affect your behavior. “Unconscious bias also undermines recruiting efforts and employee development, which can be destabilizing to an organization,” Forbes contributor Laura Berger writes. “Exacerbating these detriments are the fact that the majority of mid- to high-level placements in an organization are sourced through referral.” Yet high-level promotion and placement aren’t the only place where implicit bias appears. It also has adverse effects on the hiring process.

Race and gender bias are significant byproducts of implicit bias in that organizations are continually trying to match the applicant with the right “culture fit.” This is evident in hiring. In an American Sociological Review study conducted by Lauren Rivera and Andras Tilcsik, a group of attorneys was asked to assess potential candidates for entry-level positions at their firm. Like the experiment conducted with the group of business students, these resumes were identical except for the names — both male and female — as well as listed hobbies, which subtly hinted as to the applicants’ socioeconomic status. The attorney’s recommendations revealed the existence of implicit biases: “Resumes of males with hobbies associated with higher-class backgrounds — such as sailing or classical music — received significantly more callbacks than the resumes of the higher-class females. They also received more callbacks than lower-class males and females with hobbies such as soccer and country music.”

When the raters were asked to assess the candidates by cultural fit, the results were similar, with one striking difference: “Once again, these attorneys preferred to interview the higher-class male applicants. The attorneys indicated that they did not think that the lower-class applicants would be good fits for their firms’ cultures. They also believed that the higher-class women would be more likely to have work-family conflicts that would impair their effectiveness at work.” This study demonstrates how individuals draw implicit associations from descriptive details such as hobbies, names, age and gender.

Research has also shown that names can affect who gets called back for a job interview. A study conducted by the National Bureau of Economic Research, in which they sent out identical resumes labeled with different names, revealed the presence of implicit bias. “Job applicants with white names needed to send out about 10 resumes to get one callback; those with African-American names needed to send around 15 resumes to get one callback.”

Whether you realize it or not, you seek out familiarity. When something is different from your norms, or even if a name is hard to pronounce, you are more likely to dismiss the person than someone who, as you perceive it, has a more traditional or easier to pronounce name.

An irritating manner in which implicit bias manifests itself in the workplace is referred to as microaggressions — those subtle digs directed at people which make them feel marginalized. While the individuals who cause microaggressions may not necessarily intend to hurt or marginalize subsets of a population, the cumulative effect of being bombarded by even well-intentioned comments can have a negative effect on individual attitudes and self-confidence. Examples of microaggressions include complimenting someone on their English language-speaking ability because they appear to be from another country, or referring to someone’s name as unique and different. Research has revealed that Black Americans suffer greatly from microaggressions. “Often, [microaggressions] are never meant to hurt — acts done with little conscious awareness of their meaning and effects. Instead, their slow accumulation during a childhood and over a lifetime is in part what defines a marginalized experience, making explanation and communication with someone who does not share this identity particularly difficult,” according to The Microaggressions Project.

Throughout your lifetime, you have built a mental catalogue of implicit associations that have helped you survive. Yet these mental schemas have also arisen in areas that can cause you to unfairly and inaccurately assess others. As a learning leader, how you manage implicit biases in you as well as your organization may be the difference in employees’ perception of organizational culture. Those learning leaders who are able to mitigate the negative effects of implicit bias stand to improve the productivity and efficiency of the organization while also retaining employees and enhancing the work environment.

Leadership development should begin with “why” — and that’s usually not behavior change

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Start with why, begin with the end in mind and start where you want to finish are all phrases emphasizing that we should start a program with the data that reflects where we want to end. For leadership development, this should be impact and not behavior. Let’s review how leadership development accountability has evolved.

Accountability shifts

Application without impact is just being busy.

Decades ago, we wanted participants involved in leadership development to perceive the content as valuable, important to them and something they would try. The focus was on how participants reacted to leadership development. Next, the focus shifted to ensuring that the leaders had the skills, behaviors and competencies to be a good leader. The focus was on learning. About two decades ago, the focus shifted to leader behavior. We wanted to make sure the leaders were using the competencies with their team, often measured with 360-degree feedback. With this, the focus was on behavior or application of the competencies. Today, there’s a focus on the value that leadership development delivers, or the actual impact of the leadership development. Application without impact is just being busy. The sponsors, funders and supporters of leadership development programs want what the leaders’ behavior will deliver, not just the behavior itself.

To ensure that leadership development programs end with impact, it is best to begin with impact. The first step in implementing leadership development is to start with why: connect the program to business measures, identifying the impacts that will occur if the program is implemented and the leaders use the behaviors or competencies. But just how is this done? Let’s consider two scenarios.

Scenario 1: All have the same business need.

Sometimes a leadership development program is implemented to improve the same business measures for the entire team. These measures could include increasing retention, meeting the budget or reducing team member complaints. If this is the case, the starting point is those measures for the participants (team leaders). The measures are the “why” for the program. An important question must be asked to the participants: “If you use the proposed leadership competencies with your team, can you improve the business measure?”

Usually, leadership competencies are powerful, important and flexible enough to meet this challenge. For example, if there is a retention issue, leader behavior can usually tackle retention if a lack of leadership development caused the retention issue. You want to ensure that the business measure can improve with the new leader behavior. This step is make it feasible: select the right solution. Most of us have experienced situations when leader behavior was implemented but it was not the solution to the organization’s perceived problem.

Scenario 2: Participants have different business needs.

Many leadership development programs are implemented to address system-wide problems and issues. Regardless of the function the participant is involved with, they may need new leadership competencies. But impacts are not the same for all these leaders because they will usually vary with particular functions. A leader in accounting will have different impact measures than a leader in sales, logistics or IT. They may need the same competencies, but their impact would be different. In those situations, it is important to start with the end in mind as a clear business measure identified by each individual participant. Each participant attending the program would select one or two measures from their key performance indicators that they would like to improve, but only if the measures can be improved using the proposed program’s competencies with their team. Leadership development is often flexible and powerful enough to make this leap. When this step is completed, the leadership program becomes the right solution.

What is needed

When implementing a leadership program, you have a choice. Where do you want to end the evaluation as you move through the value chain from reaction to learning, application, impact and ROI? Today, the individuals supporting leadership development and providing the budgets to make it work want to see the impact and sometimes the ROI. This requires you to evaluate major leadership programs to the impact and ROI levels and show the efficient use of funds.

If you are interested in seeing a case study outlining the steps of delivering, measuring and showing ROI, please let us know.