emerging leadership development trends in india { perspectives } leadership development
About corporate learning Harvard Business Publishing Corporate Learning partners with clients to create world-class leadership development solutions for managers at all levels. Our team leverages the management insight, thought leadership, and expertise of Harvard Business School faculty and authors from Harvard Business Review to create tailored leadership development solutions. With more than 20 years of practical experience, our innovative, technologyenabled solutions drive meaningful and lasting business results. Corporate Learning is a market group within Harvard Business Publishing. About harvard business publishing Harvard Business Publishing was founded in 1994 as a not-for-profit, wholly-owned subsidiary of Harvard University. Its mission is to improve the practice of management and its impact in a changing world. The company achieves its mission through its relationships with customers in three market groups: Higher Education, Corporate Learning, and Harvard Business Review Group. Through these platforms, Harvard Business Publishing is able to influence realworld change by maximizing the reach and impact of its essential offering ideas. 2011 Harvard Business School Publishing. All rights reserved. Harvard Business Publishing is an affiliate of Harvard Business School.
Emerging Leadership Development Trends in India Organizations with leaders in India s fast-growing economy face unique challenges with leader development. Through our work with leading organizations throughout India, we have identified four key leadership development trends happening in the region. BY VIVEK CHACHRA, SUMIT SAHNI, AND RADHIKA BANSAL Organizations in India face unique challenges with developing leaders. Vivek Chachra, Director, Corporate Learning, Harvard Business Publishing Harvard Business Publishing is committed to providing quality leadership development solutions to organizations in India. As a part of our ongoing research and work with our clients, we conducted a study of forty-three organizations with more than 1,000 employees in India and identified four key trends for leadership development in India. These trends center on the need for fast-growing organizations to more rapidly develop their leaders and the need to scale to develop larger numbers of leaders prepared to manage this growth. During our study we asked organizations about their top business priorities, and the key message that emerged was growth. Similar to our findings from our 2010 survey, our 2011 study showed that organizations in India are still experiencing rapid growth. A focus on profitability has become important due to rising input costs, cost of capital, salaries, and inflationary trends. Given the mostly uncontrollable nature of these costs, the focus is to drive profitability through: oogrowth rather than major cost reductions, and ooimproved efficiencies, such as process and technology improvements. Given the high valuations for domestic acquisitions and the stagnant policy environment in the country, Indian companies are becoming more global harvard business publishing { 1 }
TOP BUSINESS PRIORITIES Growth in domestic market 51% Growth in international markets 33% Rolling out new products and innovations 28% Other 21% Source: 2011 Leadership Development Survey: India from Harvard Business Publishing. than ever and investing heavily in exports and overseas acquisitions. This context of growth provides unique challenges related to leadership development in India. These challenges require that organizations grow leaders faster and work to build the capabilities needed to drive growth among their leaders. We have identified these four critical trends for leadership development in India today: 1. Leaders in India have to mature faster. 2. Leaders in India have to learn strategic skills to manage growth. 3. Organizations need to accelerate leadership development through innovative action learning. To do this they need to think beyond traditional instructor-led training. The focus on action learning and on-the-job training will increase. 4. Organizations need scalable and effective leadership development solutions. Thus, more and more organizations will use blended learning solutions. Trend 1 Leaders Have to Mature Faster In the interviews we conducted, we found that most leaders need to mature faster to take on more responsibility relatively early in their careers. With most organizations still on a growth track, leaders have to learn key skills in a fast-growth environment. This includes maturity to understand what a leader is, manage role transitions, and manage oneself better. As one respondent put it, We need people to take responsibility and deliver without much supervision at a very young age. When probed deeper, we found that maturing faster would mean: o oself-awareness: Being aware of your own strengths and weaknesses and personal leadership style. o oemotional Intelligence: Being aware of your own and other people s emotions. Managing emotions in a better manner. o oleadership Values: Believing in and exhibiting leadership values. Being strong on ethics. o opeople Leadership: Being able to lead and manage others. impact on leadership development: A comprehensive leadership development program must include areas that enable leaders to mature faster. While these areas have been a focus of some traditional leadership development programs, a much deeper and structured focus is required. Trend 2 Leaders Need to Learn Strategic Skills to Manage Growth Growth challenges leaders to constantly balance strategy and operations. They have to run their verticals efficiently and have to do so while investing in long-term growth. For this they need operational and strategic skills. Our study revealed that most organizations see that their leaders display significant gaps in strategic skills. { 2 } emerging leadership development trends in india
Leaders in India need skills over and above operational skills to realize the growth objectives: o othinking Strategically: The ability to view big-picture issues such as market competition, global business pressures, and demand for growth, and then translate them into real execution plans. o ochange Management and Innovation: The ability to carry down the agenda of business leaders to the rest of the organization in a rapidly growing and continuously changing business environment to drive proactive innovation and change. o otalent Management: The key leadership ability to lead, motivate, and inspire people. Develop your succession pipeline. o oglobal Leadership: The ability to lead a diverse team across different cultures (and sometimes generations) and often virtually. o obusiness Acumen: The ability to understand key drivers of a business, develop sound business proposals, and demonstrate financial acumen. impact on leadership development: When you design leadership programs for your organization, do you keep a healthy balance between operational and strategic skills? Are you grooming your leaders to be leaders for today and tomorrow? Trend 3 Organizations Need to Accelerate Leadership Development through Innovative Action Learning More and more organizations in India are adopting the well-known 70/20/10 principle of leadership development. For instance, 48 percent of organizations we studied said that they will use job assignments as a way to develop their leaders. Harvard Business Publishing believes this to be an interesting and very positive trend. Organizations can accelerate development by using action learning (for example, job assignments) in a much more structured manner. Assessments help the person understand where he or she is. Development programs help the person learn new skills, but real application comes from action learning. KEY LEADERSHIP SKILLS Strategy 40% Strategy execution Innovation 21% 23% Change management 33% Business acumen 23% Customer focus 12% Talent management 37% Communication 9% Global leadership 23% Other 33% Source: 2011 Leadership Development Survey: India from Harvard Business Publishing. harvard business publishing { 3 }
PREFERRED DEVELOPMENT METHODOLOGY elearning programs 13% Mobile learning 9% Blended learning programs 74% Face-to-face programs 26% Source: 2011 Leadership Development Survey: India from Harvard Business Publishing. The challenge is that because of the level of logistics involved in executing them, job assignments are not a scalable methodology. We believe that organizations will have to look for more innovative and scalable action learning methodologies to develop their leaders. The good news is that with a little bit of innovative thinking, this can be achieved. During our experience of working with a cross section of organizations in India, we have discovered a whole range of innovative, relevant, and scalable action learning approaches. For instance, many organizations have started using leadership simulations as an action learning tool. impact on leadership development: While designing leadership development programs for your firm, do you or does your team think about innovative ways of developing leaders through action learning? What is the breadth and depth of action learning options you provide to your leaders? Trend 4 Organizations in India Need Scalable and Effective Leadership Development Solutions India has more than 2,000 large organizations with leaders located all over the world. A large IT organization in India will have to train thousands of managers each year, and a large public-sector organization in India will have hundreds of leaders geographically dispersed. With such size, it becomes difficult to get leaders to participate in instructor-led programs. Organizations in India need scalable solutions that will allow them to train hundreds of leaders in key competencies fast. We believe that the answer to this need for scale lies in using blended learning solutions. For instance, 74 percent of organizations we surveyed said that they will use blended learning to develop their leaders this year. { 4 } Organizations are finding these types of solutions not only scalable but also more effective than the traditional training methods. This is because blended learning offers the opportunity to create a more continuous leadership development solution rather than a one-off event. We found that only 26 percent of organizations said they use just classroom training to develop their leaders. Respondents point out that this traditional route has obvious disadvantages, including how long it takes to develop an employee, high cost, decreased employee productivity, difficult scalability, and failure to create sustainable change. At Harvard Business Publishing we believe the most effective leadership development program has a healthy mix of instructor-led training, technologyenabled learning, and action learning Mobile learning, though still a new entrant in the leadership development space, is catching up quickly. However, in the short term most organizations in India will use mobile learning to push critical content rather than use it for core leadership development work. impact on leadership development: Organizations in India need to ensure that their leadership development strategy is scalable. Those responsible for leadership development in large firms have to learn how to design, deliver, and implement blended learning solutions. We believe that professionals who develop and design leadership development programs in India must keep in mind the Indian context and these four leader development trends. Doing this will keep their organizations leadership development strategy sustainable, contemporary, and relevant. Aligning with these trends will help organizations both grow leaders faster and develop the critical skills leaders need to drive growth. emerging leadership development trends in india
about the authors VIVEK CHACHRA is director, Corporate Learning, Middle East & India, for Harvard Business Publishing. In this role Vivek leads the sales and the services efforts for the firm in the region. An XLRI alumnus, he frequently contributes to thought leadership in the leadership development space. He can be reached at vchachra@harvardbusiness.org. SUMIT SAHNI is head, Learning Services, for Harvard Business Publishing in India. He engages with clients to develop and implement leadership and development programs and has trained close to 3,500 customers as a facilitator. He has conducted senior management programs on topics such as change management, leadership, and talent development and is an alumnus of the University of London. He can be reached at ssahni@harvardbusiness.org. RADHIKA BANSAL is a learning services associate for Harvard Business Publishing Corporate Learning. Radhika works closely with clients to design and deliver leadership development programs for their organizations. She has strong capabilities in solution design and implementation aimed at enhancing organizational effectiveness through talent management. She can be reached at rbansal@harvardbusiness.org.
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