Changing Leader Behavior
Recent studies have documented a real shortage in qualified leaders and a lack of confidence in current organizational leadership. As a partial solution, many organizations use development programs (e.g., training, online support systems)to strengthen individuals in leadership positions.Improving leaders'skills, knowledge, and abilities adds to the overall human capital in the organization. By doing so, leaders not only
become more effective in their roles, they also better facilitate the performance of others in their organization. However, improved leader competency does not always lead to improved business results. If an organization fails to leverage the improvements in leaders'competencies,the impact might not be readily apparent.Development programs produce the greatest bottom-line impact when they focus on leader behaviors that are clearly linked to the organizational strategy and business goals.
Isolating hange
The link between a development program and the resulting changes in leader behavior can be difficult to document. Aside from participation in the development program, many factors in the organization can affect leaders’ on-the-job application of trained skills, knowledge, and abilities. These extraneous factors can mitigate the amount of skill transfer they experience.For example, factors such as a need for the development program, supervisor support,and the organizational culture can affect the total amount of skill transfer. Because most studies of program effectiveness are not conducted in a controlled laboratory, we must look for trends in research drawn from multiple studies of various groups using a mix of research methods.
Usually, we must rely upon the observations of leaders about their own behaviors and those of individuals who work with them (i.e., coworkers,direct reports, managers, and customers). Including an outside perspective of change is also important. When available, the addition of a control group can help to determine whether any changes in leader behavior are a function of a specific development program.
Dollar Value Of Behavior Change
Estimating the impact of development is possible by converting human performance into dollar values. One way to estimate the
value of an individual leader is to use the person’s overall salary. Leaders can be viewed as organizational assets that return value to the organization in proportion to what they are
paid. If an organization pays an average leader $60,000 a year, that leader should bring back at least that amount of value to the organization;otherwise, the person could be considered a losing investment. Ideally, leaders return more than what their organization pays them,thus producing profit. In our example, one
percentage point improvement in performance is worth $600 (i.e., $60,000 x .01).