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Strong Leadership Pipeline Begins at the Frontline: Profiling a Successful
Frontline Leader by Rich Wellins, Sr. VP, DDI
Very few organizations would say they are close to
cracking the talent pipeline. With the global war for talent heating up, your
leaders will be the competitive advantage you need to meet your current and
future business needs. So what do you need to do to ensure you are priming your
Leadership PipelineSM with the right
talent from the frontline to the C-suite?
According
to the 2008/2009 Global
Leadership Forecast from DDI, only one in four leaders had high confidence in
first-level leaders in the long term. Many leaders in the lowest organizational
rungs need considerable help and guidance in advancing from a workforce
identity to their leader role. This means that priming your leadership pipeline
is every bit as important at the frontline as it is for your more strategic
leaders.
The first step is figuring
out what a successful frontline leader, or people leader, looks like. In this
white paper, we take a closer
look at the Success ProfileSM for a people leader. The paper provides additional guidance
around the next steps: identifying potential and assessing readiness, assessing
performance, and developing your new leaders.
How Interviewers Identify the Best Candidates by Kelli Buczynski, Manager, DDI
When your
hiring engine is running full-steam ahead, it is easier to accept one or two
bad hiring decisions as the cost of doing business. But in economic times like
these, when you only have the green light to fill the most critical jobs, you
can't afford a mistake.
According to
DDI research, ninety-two percent of interviewers give themselves an
"A" or "B" in interviewing, even though more than half
admit to basing hiring decisions on instinct. And, only seven percent of
untrained interviewers report a lack of confidence in their interviewing
skills. So, if we are truly as good at interviewing as we think we are, why do
so many job seekers report having been asked questions like:
What
would you do with an elephant if you had one?
How
do you make a peanut butter sandwich?
If
you were a tree, what kind would you be?
Clearly,
these are not the sorts of questions that can accurately predict future job
success, or identify your future CEO. And while most of us like to believe that
we are strong judges of character, instinct is simply not sufficient when so
much-reduced turnover, increased speed to productivity, and growing your
leadership pipeline-is at stake.
Study after study clearly
shows the correlation between strong interview techniques and on-the-job success of hired candidates. How can interviewers identify the best candidates? In this article, we will explore this topic, addressed in the latest white
paper If You Were a Tree, What Kind Would You Be? from DDI.
In this white paper, we examine strategies that enable champions for talent to manage the rough waters ahead. We'll talk specifically about the challenges to be faced, as well as opportunities for HR to assume new roles and make pivotal differences in the business. The pages ahead contain seven best practices that prove successful in good times, and essential in bad, such as engaging workers and measuring results. We'll also examine how some key strategies, such as fostering top talent and selecting new employees, need to change. Our views are informed by conversations with our clients' HR executives and senior leaders at organizations around the world, all of whom are struggling with universal issues and trying to navigate through the turbulence and uncertainty all around us.
LEADERS WITHOUT SEA LEGS: THREATS TO STAYINGAFLOAT IN UNCERTAIN TIMES by Ann Howard, PH.D., Chief Scientist, DDI & Bruce Watt, PH.D., Managing Director, DDI Australia
This paper elucidates how to lead an organization through a crisis and evaluates leaders' readiness to do so. We support our observations and recommendations using data collected from DDI executive assessment centers. Our analysis demonstrates that the leadership attributes needed to steer the organizational ship in perilous times differ markedly from those in more normal times, and the risk that the ship's officers have wobbly sea legs runs from moderate to very high.
