Our Findings on Effective Leadership Development: Insights from Top Leaders & Executives

Over the last few months, I've had hundreds of conversations with leaders and executives from top companies like Apple, Google, UBS, LinkedIn, JPMorgan Chase & Co., and others. One thing is clear: there is a tremendous need to improve leadership development programs across various organizational levels. These companies have no shortage of top talent internally who could make great leaders with proper leadership training. Here are a few key observations:

1. High-potential employees really want to develop their leadership skills to add more value to their respective teams. However, many companies expect managers to be solely responsible for leadership development of their direct reports/teams. It has become evident that many of these managers lack effective leadership coaching skills, especially when they have to meet other personal and organizational obligations.
2. For companies with formal leadership development programs, it's quite challenging for them to measure the return on investment (ROI) of these leadership training initiatives. There is little to no infrastructure in place to accurately track leadership development progress long after participants finish a program. Many corporate leadership programs are short-term (a few days to a couple of months) and fail to provide ongoing leadership coaching to reinforce the training.
3. Top talent who lack access to leadership development opportunities at their current company are quite unsatisfied. They may consider joining another company that prioritizes leadership coaching and invests in leadership training for individuals.

These insights from leadership conversations across various companies have been insightful. I'm always excited to discuss what we're building at Salley for leadership development software. Our mission is to advance human leadership potential in the age of AI with personalized leadership coaching. This is crucial now, as human leadership skills are becoming more valuable as AI permeates the workplace. We're just getting started on transforming leadership development.

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By: Richard Mensah

Founder & CEO at Salley