Are we failing our leaders when it comes to skills and talent management? Paul Daley argues that it's time to embrace the mid-level management.

The future of talent development is something that I have to consider in my job every day. And there are many opinions on how to get the best out of a workforce and how to identify those that have the ability and desire to become leaders. Recently though, I have been made to ask a difficult question. Are the current methods of workforce development employed throughout the west fundamentally flawed?

Avoid labelling

Over recent years, many organisations have adopted a model that uses ‘fast-track’ programmes to groom supposedly high potential individuals for the rigours of leadership. On a number of levels, this approach seems to work well; the chosen few feel good because their talent has been rewarded and are therefore motivated to continue achieving. And from the organisations point of view a clear line of succession has been established that will help the business to move into the future. But does this process not run the risk of alienating and de-motivating the rest of the workforce? If one group of employees are identified as ‘talent’, could this not make the rest of the workforce feel as though they have been labelled ‘untalented’?

One individual who certainly shares this view is Arvinder Dhesi, group talent management director at Aviva, the global financial services provider. According to him, letting employees know that they are all valued is an important first step, “You need to make it clear that they would not be on your payroll if you didn’t think they had the talent necessary”.

He also says that a programme designed to recognise the ‘elite’ can risk creating the ‘Pygmalion effect’ where people tend to perform up (or down) to the expectations placed upon them. To this end, Dhesi has worked with his team to avoid these pitfalls by making sure they spread their workforce development initiatives across all of, rather than just part of, the company’s global workforce.

So, what is the cost to an organisation of implying that most of the workforce is not considered talent? “Employers often over-invest in a few individuals, rather than investing in the development of the organisation as a whole”, says Dhesi. “At Aviva we are now placing bets that a bigger proportion of our people will emerge with the ability to lead. We view talent management as the process of creating fertile fields for our employees so that talent can cultivate itself.”

On top of this, a recent study of more than 500 employees currently engaged in leadership development programmes has suggested that a talent model based upon the identification and development of leaders may be particularly weak in drawing best value from one key set of professionals; the middle management group.

Nurturing the middle

ESMT, the European business school who undertook the research, found that a not insignificant proportion of respondents were only there because they had been sent by their employers. On top of this, the poll clearly showed that many middle managers didn’t actually want a leadership role in the first place because of increased responsibilities or the perceived loss of professional identity that it could entail.

It therefore highlighted an inherent fault in many conventional talent management frameworks where leadership has become synonymous with career progression. In fact, Konstatin Korotov, a professor at ESMT associated with the research says, “Many have no desire to become a leader because of the high level of responsibility the role carries and because it can take them away from the core technical aspects of their job that they have spent years mastering. The main problem is that there’s often too much talk of leadership being heroic and exciting. It can actually be a very difficult and draining role, but if an employee is prepared for its negative aspects, it can also be highly rewarding.”

So, how do we meet this problem head on?

What do we need to do to make sure that leadership development is inclusive and engaging without spending time nurturing those for leadership who have no interest in fulfilling the role? First we need to foster an environment where all of the workforce and particularly the ‘magnificent middle’ is fully engaged and each persons potential developed to the fullest extent. And the second is to create a pipeline of realistic rather than heroic leaders. Not an inconsiderable challenge perhaps, but one that I don’t feel we can afford to ignore.

Paul Daley is director of HR consulting at the international talent management specialist, Ochre House. Find out more at www.ochrehouse.com