Cracking the Code to leader growth
Leaders grow fastest when given accurate, detailed, and actionable information about the gap between their current skills and future potential. Companies seeking to create and channel development energy by providing this information often turn to assessment centers to gauge a leader’s readiness for new job challenges. These assessment centers—which include “day in the life” simulations of what it’s like to be a higher-level leader—are highly realistic, reliable, and predictive of future leadership success because they provide real opportunities to demonstrate leadership skills. Assessment center data have benefited individual leaders who seek personal and professional growth. The data also benefit individual organizations that can look across a group of their leaders to pinpoint development needs or make placement and promotion decisions. However, for senior-executive and HR professionals, there has been an untapped need. By looking at a large body of aggregate data, encompassing a large number of leaders across multiple organizations, we can begin to “crack the code” to leader growth by providing useful insights about leaders and how organizations need to go about developing them.