Cos stress on developing leaders & retaining them

Cos stress on developing leaders & retaining them
17 Oct, 2007, 0850 hrs IST,Writankar Mukherjee, TNN

KOLKATA: Indian companies are taking strategic initiatives to develop a leadership pipeline across multiple management tiers. This is revealed in a recent study by global HR consultancy Hewitt Associates. The global study notes that these companies have given high priority towards developing leaders and retaining them.

All such efforts highlight how companies are grappling with insufficient leadership talent within their organisation. No wonder, companies are now aligning leadership practices to their business strategies. “And, all such leadership development is being driven by the CEO himself,” Hewitt Associates India head (east) Sanjeev Saxena told ET on the sidelines of a National HRD Network event held here recently.

Top managements and board members of leading companies are spending nearly 30% of their time on leadership development, the study notes. Hewitt has also noted that nearly 90% of these companies have a well-defined CEO succession plan as well as an emergency CEO succession strategy.

Employees who have a high leadership potential are also given closer access to the top management. “Those with high potential are selected not only by their performance, but also character. A tough selection process is the key and hence, a lot of communication is built around this,” said Mr Saxena.

Companies are building leadership reputation as their competitive advantage. “A lot of branding opportunities are built around the leaders within the organisation as well as in the external environment. This also helps to attract leadership talent outside the organisation,” Mr Saxena said.

In fact, the Hewitt report has also identified some leading Indian companies that have made a mark in building leaders globally. These include Hindustan Unilever, Infosys, ICICI Bank, Wipro and Tata Consultancy Services.

The findings are based on a global survey of 548 companies across 41 countries conducted jointly with the RBL Group and Fortune magazine.

Source: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Cos_stress_on_developing_leaders__retaining_them/articleshow/2465087.cms