By Anne E. Kurzenberg, Manager, Leadership Development, Lucent Technologies 

Globalization.  Mega-mergers and acquisitions.  Spin-offs and start-ups.  Talent poaching.  Competition from the small and unknown. E-commerce. 

Ho hum.  Business as usual for most companies in our current and often volatile market.   

What may be business unusual is how companies develop and sustain leadership development in this environment, especially when the role of the leader has never been more complex.  Today’s leaders are expected to demonstrate an increasing breadth and depth of knowledge and experience, lead through constant change, and manage increasing demands at a faster pace than ever before.  So where does the time, effort, and attention for leadership development come from in the midst of all this?  For starters, leadership development processes must be clear and simple; accessible anytime, anywhere; high-impact, and on going!  

Like most large organizations, Lucent attracts and recruits leadership talent from the industry and systematically identifies, develops, and retains strong leaders from within.  Also, like most companies, Lucent has a leadership model that provides the framework for diagnosis of individual leadership capability and for development interventions. 

For all developing leaders at Lucent, skill building and skill-reinforcing workshops at key transition points of expanding scope of work or influence are available and strongly recommended.  These core learning events, delivered around the globe, combine simulations, dialog, and exercises for participants to learn, practice, and receive feedback on the leadership model attributes.  Core learning events are followed by targeted development, according to individual need and interest, to leverage strengths and close performance gaps.  Supplemental interventions run the gamut, including additional coursework, coaching or mentoring, expanded or new assignments, and additional assessment.

 Leaders identified with high potential participate in accelerated development experiences that provide intensive assessment, complex simulations, 360-degree feedback, formal group learning, action learning projects based on actual Lucent business scenarios, exposure to and mentoring by officer champions, and facilitated development planning. 

Present in all leadership development programs at Lucent is the use of Leaders as Teachers, the practice advocated by Noel Tichy in The Leadership Engine.  During learning events, experienced leaders share their stories and lessons of experience and facilitate group discussions.  The learning leaders, as well as the teaching leaders, benefit from the experience. 

Leadership development at Lucent is further supported with web-based technology, accessible to all employees through the intranet.  Information and toolkits (forms, presentation templates, guidelines) for high-potential identification and succession planning are posted on the site, as well as lessons of experience from selected Lucent officers.  In addition, any employee or coach may use a behaviorally anchored rating scale to determine strengths and development areas against the leadership model.  Armed with this information, site visitors navigate through a menu of development options providing:

·           the fundamentals of planning for development including a plan template
·           suggestions for matching situations with interventions
·           case studies
·           learning checklists, quizzes and guided self-reflection
·           methods for applying and sustaining lessons learned
·           tools to evaluate the success of the intervention
·           readings, external courses, links to other web sites by leadership attribute
·           key experiences to round out one’s repertoire
·           lessons from hardships and setbacks
·           suggestions for creating and managing formal and informal developmental relationships. 

Through core leadership learning events at key transition points; leadership diagnostics; supplemental, targeted interventions; broad-based and accelerated development tracks; teaching leaders; and web-supported technology, Lucent offers a system to attract, develop, and retain leaders that is impactful and sustainable. 

So, is the job done?  Not by a long shot.  Excellent progress has been made and has achieved traction, but there is more work to be done, especially in two areas:  (1) reaching deeper into the organization to identify and cultivate rising talent, and (2) transferring the learning outcomes of individual development to the organizational at-large.  This will involve preparing leaders, who have benefited from individually-focused development, to bring the lessons home, apply them, develop their own lessons of experience, and ultimately teach other leaders, thus increasing organizational capability and building the leadership bench of the next generation.    

Note: Anne Kurzenberger can be contacted at <akurzenberger@lucent.com>. 

From the Wharton Leadership Digest, April, 2000.