Develop Leadership the Right Way: A Guide

My colleague, an expert in leadership development David Day, has written a terrific new book that is a must-have for those who work in the area of leadership development, and for anyone trying to improve their own leadership. Developing Leaders and Leadership: Principles, Practices, and Processes relies on evidence-based ideas and techniques for leadership development. Day (2000) has already famously distinguished leader development and leadership development. Leader development, he suggests, focuses on the individual. Leadership development is about developing the leadership capacity of the team or collective. After all, leaders alone don’t do leadership; it takes the team, or followers, working with the leader to enact leadership.

The book begins with Day’s first principles for developing leaders and leadership. Each of these principles helps guide optimal leadership development, and is supported by research. Let’s look at each of these principles and the implications for the design and execution of leadership development programs.

1. You Cannot Make Anyone Develop as a Leader

What this essentially says is that a leader, or potential leader, needs to own their development and have the self-motivation and desire to develop. In other words, mandatory programs, in which leaders are sent off to a development program and expected to learn and grow will not work unless the leaders themselves want to develop. In her research, my colleague, Becky Reichard, has focused not just on individuals’ motivation to lead, but their motivation to develop and improve their leadership.

2. Development Requires Dedicated Work Over a Long Period of Time

Meta-analyses of leader development programs show that longer programs tend to lead to more development. Simply put, leaders won’t learn much in a single-day or weekend program. Complex leadership skills take time and practice to develop. Day uses this memorable analogy that one-shot leader development programs are like a ticket to an amusement park. Everyone might have a good time, but not much development takes place in a brief encounter. Day says that good leader development programs are like a gym membership: You have to use it, and work out regularly, to actually develop.

3. Leadership Is Learned Through Experience

Day argues that to develop effectively, leaders have to undergo challenging experiences—experiences that push them to stretch beyond what they currently know and do. Reflection on the learning process is also important.

Day argues that leader-development experts and consultants should follow these basic principles and use evidence-based practices in their efforts. He advocates for the assessment-challenge-support process. Assessment means measuring leader competencies and assessing change that takes place. The challenge is the challenging experiences in the third principle. And support refers to the developing leader getting support for their leader development efforts from superiors, peers, and followers who encourage the leader’s positive development.