Is Development A Privilege Or A Responsibility

I have a rather tough-minded question to ask of leaders.

The question is this: Is the offer for investment in developing a leader a perquisite, a privilege or a responsibility?

For a long time, when organizations offered any development to a leader, be it feedback, executive education or coaching, it was positioned as a privilege. The narrative was, “look, you are the chosen one, you have potential and we believe in you, we would like you to develop”.

The second narrative was around development being voluntary. “This is voluntary, you take the initiative, own your development because the sense of agency is important. If you are busy and not interested, it’s okay”.

There is truth in both these stances. But I think in overdoing this, we are missing a third and less articulated narrative around responsibility. “Very few organisations would say, “It is your responsibility to constantly develop yourself. It is not a choice because too much is at stake for us”.

Let’s imagine a leader who has been hired or chosen to lead an extremely important business at a huge compensation. This leader has been given a large team and the freedom to hire even more people at huge costs and the freedom to shape the business and the whole Board and the business now expects him to make this a success.

If the board believes that the leader has blind spots or development needs but the leader refuses to believe that he needs to receive feedback, needs to change his views and opinions and his style or says he has no time for development. Imagine the huge risk the leader is exposing the business to. Imagine the organisation climate the leader might be negatively impacting. Imagine the poor decisions the leader might be taking. Imagine the lack of guidance his leaders might be suffering from.

Quite often, when organizations approach us for coaching, it would appear to me that the sponsors are more serious about development than the leader is and there are no consequences to this stance. This to me is a serious situation.

I am imagining a day when in addition to the employment contract or the letter of pay increase, organisations also sign a developmental contract with its leaders where it is emphasised that being open to receiving feedback and seeking developmental support is a responsibility that the leader must fulfil.

A leader who refuses to embrace developmental investments overtly or covertly can in today’s world be a serious liability.

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