Leading Effectively e-Newsletter - November 2008 Issue

Time Honored

CCL has been studying leaders and their development for 38 years. Many of our practices have become "tried and true" ways to develop leaders and leadership. Here, we highlight ideas, strategies and tactics that we have developed and refined over many years and by working with many thousands of clients.

Creating a Portfolio of Experiences

Effective leaders learn from a full portfolio of leadership experiences. Rather than taking a narrow view of training or development, consider these connections between ongoing learning and effective leadership:

• Effective leaders continue to develop their repertoire of skills throughout their careers. To be effective in a wide variety of leadership roles and situations, individuals have to master new competencies. Instead of always relying on a limited set of natural capabilities, they have to become well-rounded. This development of a repertoire of skills is a gradual, continuous process.
• A significant part of this development occurs though practical experiences. Adults learn when their day-to-day responsibilities and challenges require it - and when they have the opportunity to engage in experiences, draw lessons and insights from those experiences, and apply the new knowledge and skills to the next experience.
• The more varied the practical experiences, the greater the likelihood of developing a broad repertoire of skills. Leaders who continue to focus only on doing the work that they are already good at are less likely to broaden their capacity. Leaders who step into new situations and face challenges that call for untested abilities continue to develop their capacity and successfully take on higher levels of leadership responsibility.