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influences what he or she learns and incorporates into his/her
development process. Since each person is different and has different
needs and competencies, this should be strongly recognized in the
leadership development process.

It should also be kept in mind that simply imposing new skills and change
on people doesn't usually work because:
• It assumes that people's personal aims and wishes and needs are
completely aligned with those of the organization, or that there is no
need for such alignment, and

• It assumes that people want, and can assimilate into their lives, given
all their other priorities, the type of development or change that the
organization deems appropriate for them.

A successful leadership development program begins with the alignment
of leadership development to organizational strategy and an
understanding of the type of leadership style/styles needed to execute that
strategy. The organization then needs to construct an incremental series of
steps to meet current and future leadership needs. This comprehensive
leadership development program should be systematic, involving the
following:

• Recruitment of potential leaders;
• Assessments to evaluate leadership capabilities within the
organization, and assessing what knowledge, skills and /or abilities
are needed by learners;

• Designing the training, including identifying learning goals and
associated outcomes and training methods to reach the desired
outcomes;
• Developing the training methods and materials;
• Implementing the training;

• Developing an evaluation approach to manage performance in the
program by monitoring and making course corrections, and to
determine whether the outcomes have been reached or not;
• Succession planning to avoid leadership gaps in the future;

• Career planning to foster employee understanding of their leadership
options and help them set development goals; and,

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