Developing Leaders

The importance of front-line leaders has never been greater.

Think of the things a team leader or supervisor must do in a modern day contact centre, for example. Their duties and responsibilities are wide-ranging and draw upon a number of skills. These include meeting demanding targets, motivating staff, being the first point of contact for IT issues, project management, dealing with difficult customers and being a coach and mentor.

However, research frequently shows that people who undertake these roles have often received no leadership development before they are appointed. Moreover, once they are in place, they receive no leadership or management development.

The Chartered Institute of Management has identfied the term 'accidental managers.' These are people who end up in leadership roles with little or no training.

Demonstrating the precise impact that front-line have on overall departmental performance has proved difficult in practice. Evidence suggests that front-line leaders can have an impact on levels of employee morale as well as absence and attrition levels.

In staff surveys in contact centres, the following points regularly come up, all of which are in the domain of the front-line or team leader:

• Team leaders do not communicate with staff and this impacts motivation


• Agents do not obtain the support they require or feel valued


• Performance management processes are poorly or inconsistently applied


• Team leaders do not work as a team and often have different standards or expectations.

In his book 'The Little Big Things,' Tom Peters says that 'the principal determinant of worker satisfaction is...whether or not the employee gets along with his or her firts-line supervisor.'

Tom goes on to say that the development of first-line leaders is a 'first order strategic decision.'

John Adair in his book 'How to Grow Leaders' identifies seven principles that form the basis of a strategy to develop leaders.

In describing the principles, Adair suggests that any organisation serious about developing their leaders should examine each one to assess what their approach is and whether it is effective.

Adair's seven principles of leadership development are:

• Training for leadership


• Selection


• Line managers as leadership mentors


• The chance to lead


• Education for leadership


• Strategy for leadership development


• The importance of backing from the Chief Executive.

Top performing organisations in leadership development have effective practices for each of the principles identified by John Adair. In the lenses in this series, we will look at each principle individually and identify best practice ideas and examples that ensure each one is applied for maximum impact.

When all the principles are in place, the organisation will have a robust front-line leadership development strategy in place.

The next lens in this series ' Principle One - Training for Leadership' will be ready within seven days.

Please check back then to continue reading about 'Developing Leaders.;