Public Sector Enterprises (PSEs) were set up in India post-independence to quickly build the country’s industrial backbone. Key considerations for the setting up of PSEs were to accelerate the growth of core sectors of the economy, to serve the equipment needs of strategically important sectors, and to generate employment and income.

A large number of “sick units” were taken over from the private sector, and several banks were nationalized between 1969 and 1980. This government-led industrial policy, with corresponding restrictions on private enterprise, was the dominant pattern of Indian economic development until the economic crisis of 1991.

Thereafter, the government began disinvesting its ownership in several PSEs in order to raise capital and privatize companies with poor financial status. All along, PSEs have been the key vehicles for driving key economic and social objectives for the development of the country.

While PSEs have contributed significantly to the nation’s economy since independence, generating profit and social benefit, the new era of leadership in public sector enterprises must play a more strategic role and adapt to emerging challenges.

Leadership in public sector enterprises must modernize, compete in a free market, link with similar organizations in other countries, and develop a comprehensive strategy for overseas investment. All the while, PSEs must also continue to earn profit and focus on social benefit generation.

Research Methodology for Understanding the State of Leadership in Public Sector Enterprises

Research for Future-fluent Nation Builders: State of Leadership in Public Sector Enterprises in India was conducted by the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL)® in partnership with Standing Conference of Public Enterprises (SCOPE). The objective of the research was to understand:

• Critical capability gaps of leadership in public sector enterprises (PSEs) in India.
• Competencies required to succeed in PSE leadership roles.
• Critical must-have experiences to prepare for future PSE leadership roles.
• Practices employed in exemplar PSEs to develop a robust pipeline of leaders.

This research initiative involved a quantitative and qualitative approach. In total, the research team collected 732 valid responses to the “Future-fluent Nation Builders” survey (between December 2020 and February 2021) from over 20 PSEs.

The research team also interviewed 25 senior leaders in PSEs. The interviewees were mainly CXOs with GM, Director, and CMD titles, and belonged to a mix of industries.

Findings and Next Steps for Strengthening Leadership in Public Sector Enterprises

This report outlines the findings from the research, including dilemmas faced by leadership in public sector enterprises; the values, mindsets, skillsets, and experiences successful PSE leaders must have; current and future skills gaps that exist within leadership in public sector enterprises; and lessons learned from successful C-suite leaders that can be adopted by PSE leaders.

Learn more about what’s needed for successful leadership in public sector enterprises and how to build a pipeline of future-fluent nation builders by downloading our research report below.

Download Research Report

The post Future-Fluent Nation Builders: The State of Leadership in Public Sector Enterprises in India appeared first on CCL.

• Case Study
• : Government, Aerospace & Defense

Boundary Spanning in a High-Pressure, High-Stakes Environment

CLIENT:	U.S. State Department and U.S. Department of Defense
LOCATION:	Iraq
SIZE:	Tens of thousands of U.S. military and civilian personnel

Client Profile & Challenge

On September 1, 2010, the United States launched Operation New Dawn in Iraq. After 8 years of combat, the U.S. planned to completely remove all military troops and transition U.S. leadership in Iraq from the military to the State Department no later than December 31, 2011.

Simultaneously, the U.S. would continue to work to stabilize the fledgling Iraqi democracy and strengthen the country’s security forces in an environment still marked by ethnic strife and active insurgencies. The ambitious plan had an equally ambitious timeline: just 16 months.

The Ambassador to Iraq, James Jeffrey, and General Lloyd Austin were responsible for carrying out Operation New Dawn. They knew that to be successful, the State Department and U.S. military had to collaborate seamlessly, despite having very different organizational cultures.

“Our 2 organizations really do have different DNA, and left to their own devices, they would work at cross-purposes,” Austin says. “We had to understand how we were different as organizations, but also different as individuals within the organizations,” Jeffrey notes. “That was the first step to ensuring that the 2 organizations could deal cooperatively with each other and, to some degree, meld together to meet the mission.”

If successful, Austin and Jeffrey would accomplish U.S. policy goals in Iraq and provide a tangible example to Iraqi leaders of how to overcome conflict, bridge differences, and achieve common goals.

Solution & Results

Austin and Jeffrey wanted to create a team of senior military and diplomatic leaders to ensure that the U.S. would speak with “one voice.” They faced 3 challenges: Identifying the differences between civilian and military leaders, spanning the boundaries that divided the 2 groups, and creating high-performing, collaborative teams.

“I knew we had to build a team of teams with the ambassador and the embassy,” Austin says. “If we worked at cross-purposes, it would be nearly impossible to accomplish both of our mission sets.”

The general and ambassador decided to build capacity for collaboration through a “Combined Vision Development Seminar” for the senior division commanders, general officers, and counselor-level embassy personnel. The seminar was to jump-start the process of becoming a “team of teams.” In a single 14-hour day, the goal was to create a framework for how the 2 organizations would achieve the unity of effort required for the mission.

We flew a 6-person delivery team to Iraq and into the Baghdad conflict zone to conduct interviews in both organizations and facilitate the seminar.

During the seminar, the participants from Defense and State learned about 3 key boundary-spanning strategies: Managing boundaries, forging common ground, and discovering new frontiers.

• Managing boundaries: To span boundaries, you must first see them clearly and understand how groups are different to then build safety and respect;
• Forging common ground: Finding what is universal and shared brings groups together to achieve a larger purpose; and
• Discovering new frontiers: Discovering similarities and differences fuels the “team of teams” by differentiating expertise, experience, and resources while being driven by an integrated vision and strategy.

“After the seminar, we set up a relatively rigorous and planned-out system,” Jeffrey says. That included a set of practices and a mindset to drive close collaboration, including:

• Twice-weekly in-person meetings between the ambassador and the general, alternating between the military headquarters and the embassy;
• A collaborative mindset that made inclusion, openness, and over-communication necessary and expected throughout the ranks and across the system;
• A one-voice approach to communications with Washington, Iraqi authorities, and other stakeholders in Iraq; and
• Viewing their differences as positive, so everyone understood that State and Defense’s strengths and weaknesses complemented and supported each other.

“I think we played upon each other’s talents in this way and really capitalized on strengths,” Austin says.

A year after the launch of New Dawn and the Combined Vision Development Seminar, both leaders said their mission remained on track. A seamless ethos of collaboration had been maintained between State and Defense, and Iraq had experienced significant economic, government, and security wins.

These dramatic changes came about in the face of what Jeffrey describes as a “no-kidding, ultra-hard mission.”

He says that by working together, “we’ve been able to carry out the plan that looked so daunting.”

Austin adds that the unit-of-effort, team-of-teams approach made “us twice as powerful as we would have otherwise been.”

Partner With Us

We’ve been delivering leadership development programs for the government sector for decades. We can help guide you and your government organization through times of disruption – and the transformed future that lies ahead. 

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Government Leadership After Crisis: Resetting Your Mindset and Expanding Your Tool Set

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Boundary Spanning Leadership

Government Leadership Development

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The post Boundary Spanning in a High-Pressure, High-Stakes Environment appeared first on CCL.

• Case Study
• : Government, Aerospace & Defense, Transportation & Automotive

Helping Leaders Form Deeper Connections by Building Active Listening & Feedback Skills

CLIENT:	Copa Airlines
LOCATION:	Headquartered in Panama, with flights serving the Americas
SIZE:	9,500 plus 4,000 contractors

Client Profile & Challenge

Based on operational performance and financial results, Copa Airlines is one of the world’s best-performing airlines. But Copa leaders aren’t resting on their laurels.

Copa serves a large market, the Americas, where air travel is projected to grow faster than the global average. Not only has the company grown rapidly for nearly 2 decades, but in recent years, its workforce has shifted to a younger demographic. Employee engagement at Copa is generally high. However, one of its 2 culture-based KPIs — Copa’s Leadership Index — wasn’t at optimal levels.

In response, the airline spent 15 months assessing whether its formal leadership behaviors, established more than a decade earlier, were still valid and as effective as they could be. Copa’s Learning & Development department and Corporate Communications team conducted more than 50 focus groups with employees across all functions and at all organizational levels. They asked employees what behaviors they wanted and expected from leaders. After a deep analysis of that input, Copa established 5 new leadership behaviors. Leaders should:

• Inspire with their work, friendliness, and positivism;
• Live the company’s values, and be a role model at all times;
• Listen and communicate frequently and respectfully;
• Know their people and care about their wellbeing; and
• Guide, develop, and recognize their teams.

Historically, Copa’s leaders have focused on business goals. Now the airline’s leaders would be asked to better connect with the people they lead, helping the airline continue its strong performance. Copa needed a partner to help implement training that would allow these new leadership attributes to take flight.

Solution & Results

As Copa Airlines started to look at potential partners, it encountered its first obstacle: consultants who wanted to redo Copa’s research and analysis. “Most consultants would want to start with the company strategy, and then they would want to walk us through the entire journey,” says Dominik Rus, Corporate Learning & Development director. “CCL instead acknowledged the analyses we had done and said, ‘You guys did the heavy lifting. Let’s not redo that.’” 

We saw the opportunity for a high return on training time by focusing on developing 2 vital skills: active listening and providing feedback. Those 2 skills would cover about 80% of the desired new leadership behaviors. We partnered with Copa and developed a scalable solution: a half-day workshop on giving effective feedback on positive and negative behaviors, based on our Situation – Behavior – Impact (SBI) feedback method. Leaders also received training in active listening, learning to concentrate on what’s being said, fully understand it, respond, and remember. This deeper listening involves understanding facts plus emotions and values, helping leaders better navigate critical conversations.

BY THE NUMBERS: KEY PEOPLE METRICS
	Before Training	After Training
Organizational Climate	72%	78%
Engagement	75%	82%
Leadership Index	67%	70%

The first training session included Copa’s CEO direct reports, and some vice presidents. By starting with the senior leadership team and scaling to the rest of the organization, Copa ensured the training would take off within the company’s culture. Training sessions were conducted in Spanish and English, making them accessible to Copa’s diverse, multilingual, multinational workforce.

Though we led some initial workshops, a linchpin of the Copa engagement was helping the airline own the process so it could teach and sustain the new leadership skills. CCL trained more than 20 vice presidents and directors from across the airline to deliver the solution. This train-the-trainer and licensing approach allowed Copa to provide the training to more than 1,000 leaders in less than a year. The fact that most internal trainers were from various functional units — not only Learning & Development — further fueled Copa’s efforts to elevate the new leadership attributes.

Company leaders are confident the leadership index will continue to rise. “Before, it was all about efficiencies, operational excellence, and profit margins,” Dominik says. Those are still top priorities at Copa, but a new focus has been added: “It’s about people and people and people.”

KEYS TO SUCCESS

• The train-the-trainer approach empowers Copa to own the process and makes it scalable and sustainable;
• Leadership attributes are embedded into all people processes: recruiting and selection, onboarding, learning and development, performance management, organizational climate management, recognition programs, and corporate communications; and
• Copa licensed CCL content for internal communications to reinforce the new leadership behaviors.

Partner With Us

Our licensing is a great option for organizations who want our expertise and support — but need the independence to do their own thing. Learn more about licensing options, from fully customized designs to half-day workshops, or about how we can help you build and scale coaching skills across your organization.

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What Is Active Listening?

Improve Talent Development With Our SBI Feedback Model

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Listening to Understand

Feedback Training That Works

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The post Helping Leaders Form Deeper Connections by Building Active Listening & Feedback Skills appeared first on CCL.

High-level military leader selections impact thousands of individuals and processes that make up our military, which means these leaders need to be effective and resilient and rise above leadership military challenges.

Yet how do military leaders learn the lessons of leadership? Traditional wisdom tells us that classroom leader development and battlefield experience are perhaps the key places where officers learn about leadership, but is there a broader set of experiences that have an important developmental impact?

What lessons do military leaders actually learn that they come to see as most valuable? And how can we draw upon their experiences to avoid future mistakes and build on past successes?

Until recently, no one had gone directly to senior military officers and asked these questions about leadership military challenges and experiences.

We conducted research with military officers attending our Leadership at the Peak program, surveying them on their key developmental experiences and the lessons learned from those events.

Understanding the types of events that lead to these vital lessons can provide current and future military officers a greater ability to guide subordinates, provide opportunities to learn, and identify situations that can deliver important leadership lessons. These key events also assist practitioners when creating tools and processes to enhance leadership development and address leadership military challenges.

In addition, leader development practitioners can better create tools and processes to assist these military leaders in not only charting the best course for their own development but also reflecting on what has been learned from the opportunities they’ve had.

Top 10 Developmental Experiences to Address Leadership Military Challenges

Respondents in our survey were asked to reflect on their careers and to share the key developmental experiences that led to a lasting change in the way they lead or manage.

As noted in our white paper, what emerged from this list were the 10 key developmental experiences listed below. Developmental experiences include, but go well beyond, traditional classroom work and battlefield experience as sources of leader development.

1. Positive Role Models (37%)
2. Negative Role Models (27%)
3. Failures and Mistakes (19%)
4. Leader in High-Risk Situations (17%)
5. Increase in Scope (15%)
6. Coursework (14%)
7. Personal Trauma (14%)
8. Mentors (14%)
9. Values Playing Out (12%)
10. Lateral Moves (10%)

The top 3 events (Positive Role Models, Negative Role Models, and Failures and Mistakes) provide a greater understanding of the types of experiences that lead to leadership lessons and improved leadership behaviors in the military. Military officers clearly perceive role models as the most influential development experience in their careers.

Failures and Mistakes were reported as key developmental events by 19% of participants and offered the second-highest level of opportunity to learn lessons of leadership. In high-stakes situations, while in the spotlight of powerful audiences, and during day-to-day operations, these Failures and Mistakes events were vital experiences that impacted top officers’ approaches to leadership.

Managing Subordinates: A Common Lesson Throughout Key Developmental Experiences

Across all the developmental experiences listed by the participants, “Managing Subordinates” was a lesson that ran through the events most frequently. Leading through crisis, building teamwork, and preparing others for high-stress combat situations and leadership military challenges seemed to be the greatest lesson that top military leaders learned from every event they described, except Personal Trauma and Values Playing Out. Additionally, 86% of all respondents reported they learned something about Managing Subordinates from positive and negative role model events.

Managing Subordinates lessons can be highlighted as an area for reflection and learning during future training and mentoring while providing valuable pathways for the next generation of leaders.

Military leaders are expected to value, protect, develop, and manage performance problems in their subordinates. And when managing people, it’s important to keep in mind that subordinates are watching the type of leadership officers model and how they handle and learn from their Failures and Mistakes.

Implications for Leadership in the Military

The research we conducted provides insight into leadership military challenges and the lessons successful military officers learned from specific leadership development experiences.

As such, it can inform the personnel policy decisions that are intended to produce senior leaders with particular leadership competencies by providing them with the experiences that develop those competencies.

What stands out from this study is that individuals gained the most from experiences with Positive and Negative Role Models, and the greatest lessons they learned were about Managing Subordinates.

Officers learn from role models how they should and should not lead others. Regardless of the insight they have into the rationale behind their superiors’ decisions, they are witness to superiors’ behaviors and how those behaviors impact others.

Role models also shape officers’ impressions of who they might become by continued military service. A positive role model can inspire a commitment to a career of military service, while a negative role model can cause an officer to change careers. Self-aware leaders with high levels of empathy replicate themselves by their example and through mentoring relationships with promising subordinates.

Managing Subordinates emerges from the data as the most frequent lesson learned by participants and is connected to the majority of reported experiences. This finding emphasizes the need for leaders to boost their self-awareness to learn as much as possible about their own leadership style, the impact of their behaviors on others, and their approach to communication.

It also means that, while designing careers to create the broadening experiences that will grow adaptable leaders, the military should ensure that officers have developmental experiences that teach them how to manage others and overcome leadership military challenges.

Military services can leverage mentoring and coaching programs for people rising through the ranks in order to develop senior officers who are positive role models with superior coaching and mentoring skills.

Officers with the emotional intelligence to skillfully manage individual subordinates through professional challenges and personal traumas can set a tone that creates a healthy command climate within the organizations they lead. Whatever an officer can do to become a better role model and mentor will have ripple effects that positively influence the development of subordinates throughout their careers.

Ready to Take the Next Step?

At CCL, we’ve been helping organizations deal with leadership challenges in the military and government sector for decades. We can serve as a trusted partner to you and your defense agency or or organization with our government leadership training.

The post Learning Leadership in the Military appeared first on CCL.

Innovation may be standard operating procedure at venture capital-funded startups and tech goliaths such as Apple, Amazon, and Google. But it’s often a struggle for organizations in more “traditional” sectors, such as insurance, banking, or government.

Yet even in these sectors, executives and managers recognize a need for innovation.

During everyday operations, leaders of these organizations must find ways to balance the tensions of their industries, complying with complex regulations or aggressively managing risks while also driving change and innovation in order to create more value for their customers.

Financial services firms, government agencies, and other more traditionally cautious organizations must be deliberate in adopting pro-innovation behaviors and changing their culture so they can operate efficiently while also finding ways to innovate and evolve.

That need is underscored during times of crisis or upheaval, as in the recent coronavirus pandemic and its aftermath, but it’s an ever-present tension.

How to Promote Organizational Change & Innovation

6 Practices to Spur Creativity

We recommend these 6 practices that can spur creativity and add quick and creative innovation, even in industries or sectors typically considered “slow and stodgy.”

1. Ensure that senior leaders truly buy into the idea of innovation.

It’s not enough for the top management team to nod their heads when the CEO says, “Be more innovative.”

Senior leaders need to put their money, and their behavior, on the line. They must foster organizational innovation by supporting the innovation equation, and remember that the most concrete way they can support organizational change and innovation is by funding innovation activities and protecting them, even — and maybe especially — during challenging times or market downturns.

2. Define what innovation means for your organization.

It’s not just creativity. Innovation is a business discipline that creates value for customers in new ways and earns a measurable return.

Focus on key drivers of value for your organization, which might be things like logistics expertise (Amazon), customer service (Starbucks), or innovative products (Apple). Look for ideas in line with your business strategy.

3. Teach people how to innovate.

Generating new ideas is only part of innovation. Consider whether leaders and managers are subconsciously encouraging, or sabotaging, innovation — and help them adopt new ways of evaluating fresh ideas. Also, ensure they are fostering innovative mindsets on the team.

4. Track innovation efforts from beginning to end.

Just because it’s creative doesn’t mean you can’t measure and monitor it. Organizations should track inputs (how many new ideas are being generated) as well as outcomes (the ROI of innovative ideas that are implemented).

5. Look for quick wins.

Even with senior leaders on board and modeling innovation-friendly behavior, it’s easy for a traditional corporate or government culture to fall back into its old practices. By finding and implementing “quick wins,” leaders can cement their commitment to organizational change and innovation.

Pilot projects are a good way to manage the risks of innovation while still giving them a true trial in the marketplace.

6. Recognize success and thank people.

Innovative organizations explicitly thank people for their ideas and contributions — even for ideas that aren’t implemented.

A thank you can be anything from a hand-written note from a senior executive to an annual awards ceremony to honor innovators. Showing gratitude will make you a better leader.

While it’s harder to drive change and innovation in some industries, leaders always have the choice of going against prevailing assumptions and choosing to build more innovative organizations.

That choice itself is an example of promoting innovation.

Ready to Take the Next Step?

Help drive organizational change and innovation with a customized learning journey for your leaders using our research-backed modules. Available leadership topics include Influencing Skills, Innovation Leadership, Leading Through Change & Disruption, Learning Agility, and more.

The post How to Drive Successful Organizational Change & Innovation in Traditional Industries appeared first on CCL.

In the face of threats — both domestic and international — the U.S. intelligence community relies on its ability to communicate and collaborate across boundaries. Unfortunately, when that collaboration isn’t as strong as it should be, Americans feel the consequences.

But much remains to be done to foster greater collaboration and communication across all government agencies, and few government leaders are trained to make that happen.

While nearly 9 out of 10 senior executives we surveyed worldwide said they felt it was “extremely important” for them to work collaboratively across boundaries, fewer than 1 in 10 felt they had the skills to do so effectively.

This gap in leadership skills is especially prevalent in the federal government, where managers have learned to work vertically using a command-and-control leadership model. They work upward with senior colleagues and downward with direct reports. But they typically do not work across organizational silos.

In the military and at national security agencies, it’s critical that employees understand why you should collaborate across boundaries. To connect the dots and avert future terrorism attempts, government workers must develop the boundary-spanning skills to lead a complex national security structure composed of many different agencies and departments with varied missions. These boundary-spanning behaviors can only be developed through intentional professional development and interagency assignments and practice.

But the need to reach across functional, departmental, and agency borders isn’t limited to security challenges or crisis situations.

Day-to-day operations at all government agencies and departments, run largely by career civil servants, also require a new kind of collaboration.

How Government Workers Can Break Down Silos & Foster Collaboration

3 Ways to Span Boundaries

Several leadership skills are crucial for government leaders, among them fostering collaboration. We suggest government workers use the following 3 recommendations to increase collaboration and communication across government silos.

1. Slow down to power up.

When leaders focus on learning rather than speed, they arrive at multiple right answers and better solutions. Paradoxically, slowing down at first saves time over the long run, as missteps due to poor communication and faulty assumptions are reduced.

When leaders and teams slow down action, conversation, and decision-making at critical times, they are able to address challenges at the root level.

2. Change your organizational culture.

The primary reasons government organizations fail to collaborate are behavioral: Many managers in the government are risk-averse, fear failure, and impose boundaries on themselves and their teams. (These are some of the common problems facing traditional organizations when trying to drive innovation successfully.)

Political appointees and top senior executives must understand their agency’s leadership culture. Is it open and receptive to outside influence and collaboration, or is it closed and insular? Agencies may need to evolve the leadership culture to foster an environment of learning.

Questioning should not only be allowed but expected. Establish and encourage dialogue, and create an environment of psychological safety that asks questions focusing on “why” and “what if” in order to get to root causes and generate more alternatives to systemic problems.

3. Cultivate leadership talent.

Government agencies must intentionally design and implement the strategies, culture, systems, and processes needed to sustain their workforce.

Development planning is a critical component of an effective succession management strategy and should include a strong talent review process.

Be sure to include highly skilled technical roles as well as managerial roles. Agencies’ political appointees and senior executives in top leadership positions must be involved in succession management planning if it’s to be effective.

Ready to Take the Next Step?

We have decades of experience tailoring our leadership training programs for U.S. government workers and the roadblocks to collaboration they face through our Government Practice. Learn more about our leadership programs that are GSA-approved for individual development.

The post Boundary Spanning to Break Down Silos in Government appeared first on CCL.

Government leaders today face an array of challenges, which we explore, along with the implications for development, below.

Top Challenges of Government Leaders vs. Business Leaders

Do leaders in the public sector face different challenges from their private sector counterparts? If so, do those differences alter the skills and behaviors required for good leadership? How might these differences impact leader development?

To answer these questions, our researchers studied 1,500 U.S. federal government civilian leaders and a sample of more than 500 private sector business leaders who attended leadership programs over the past 5 years. We found that leaders from both sectors named similar leadership challenges and prioritized them in parallel, for the most part. Here’s what we found:

However, we also noted that the unique setting and context of the public sector lead to subtle, but very real and noteworthy, differences, too.

A deeper look at the data shows that the government environment impacts some of the challenges its leaders face. In particular, many government leaders feel acute financial and constitutional constraints that may impact their ability to motivate employees, navigate fiscal concerns, deal with problem employees, and drive organizational change innovation in a traditional environment with complex regulations and bureaucracy.

These key differences alter how public sector leaders should behave, the skills they need to succeed, and the development necessary to help them meet those challenges.

4 Skills Government Leaders Need to Succeed

To understand the skills government leaders need to be successful in an environment that is volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA), we conducted additional research, based on an analysis of leadership effectiveness data from more than 16,000 managers working in the government sector who attended our leadership programs over a period of several years.

As noted in our white paper, we found 4 skills most critical for government leaders’ success:

• Leading employees;
• Leading change;
• Developing participative management skills; and
• Understanding boundaries and how to span them.

We also found that the ability to put people at ease is the leadership competency most highly rated in terms of importance among the government leaders we studied.

Strength Areas for Government Leaders

Our research shows government sector managers are skilled in several important areas, such as resourcefulness, straightforwardness, and composure, as well as building and mending relationships, decisiveness, and doing whatever it takes.

Understanding that social identity differences matter (such as gender, race, and ethnicity) is another strong point of government leaders. Those who are able do so are seen as quick to acquire new knowledge, resourceful, and willing to do whatever it takes to achieve agreed-upon goals.

These findings show that government agencies have a group of interpersonally skilled, intelligent, and committed leaders — a powerful asset on which to build.

Challenge Areas for Government Leaders

3 Top Leadership Priorities

Clearly, government leaders are recognized for their commitment, service to the nation, and unwavering dedication to their mission. However, these same leaders fall short in several important areas.

The results indicate the top priorities for leader development in the government sector involve increasing leadership capacity in these key ways.

1. Leading Employees

Our research shows that leading employees is something managers learn from a variety of experiences during their careers. Yet while leading employees was seen as the most important competency for government leaders, it was rated as next to last, in terms of leader effectiveness.

Leading employees in the public sector is highly challenging, and government leaders can benefit from further development in the key skills required to create direction, alignment, and commitment among their employees. Core skills in this arena include identifying and hiring talented staff, delegating and following up, and developing employees.

Agencies that seek to retain their top talent and develop them in this area often focus on identification and development of high-potential employees, making sure they have training and opportunities that offer them a broad and deep foundation for moving forward within the organization.

2. Responding to and Managing Change

Change management was rated as important by more than half of those who responded in our study, but was in the bottom half of the leadership competencies in terms of effectiveness.

Government sector leaders can learn more about responding to and managing change and can develop a more participative leadership style. This means placing greater emphasis on involving others in decision-making and getting more input before taking action. These are skills that can be developed through training initiatives focused on enhancing self-awareness and by working with a coach over time.

Developmental assignments are the linchpin for leaders with the confidence to manage change. Assignments that are outside of their primary technical area provide a different perspective. They can see how their technical area fits into the greater whole, so they can better understand and manage change across the organization.

3. Providing Cross-Organizational Experiences to Increase Boundary Spanning

Too narrow a functional or departmental orientation is the most likely reason for managers in government to derail.

Leaders at all levels can encourage the development of this leadership competency by providing opportunities for their direct reports and high-potential leaders to reach outside their own functional or departmental experiences. A diversity of experiences (different assignments, developmental relationships, classroom training) can round out skills and broaden perspectives, reducing the possibility of derailment.

Government leaders who seek to remain in their own silo are doomed to obsolescence. Without access to additional resources — even when unit performance or challenges merit those investments — leaders may need to collaborate even more intently and effectively with peers to accomplish the mission. That’s why it’s critical that government leaders develop the ability to collaborate across boundaries.

Participative management encourages the involvement of employees at all levels of the organization to create resources through relationships and organizational synergies. Often, this includes increasing collaboration and communication across agency and departmental silos.

Implications for Leadership Development of Government Leaders

In a VUCA environment, government organizations can’t afford to put resources into generalized leadership development and simply hope they’ll achieve the right outcomes.

Instead, well-targeted leader development initiatives are essential to close critical competency gaps and ensure individual and organizational success in the public sector. Effective and well-trained government leaders will be able to meet the nation’s needs, manage the work, and find innovative and effective solutions to complex challenges.

Using our research on government leaders as a starting point, public sector agencies and organizations have the opportunity to reassess their current leadership capacity and can begin focused efforts to develop skills their leaders need, both today and for the future.

Ready to Take the Next Step?

We’ve been delivering leadership development programs for public sector employees for decades. We can help government leaders develop the skills they need to overcome challenges and succeed. Learn more about our leadership programs that are GSA-approved for individual development, or partner with the experts in our Government practice.

The post Creating Tomorrow’s Government Leaders: An Overview of Top Government Leadership Challenges appeared first on CCL.

• News
• : November 10, 2020

Management Concepts & CCL Partner to Strengthen Leadership Development for Federal Government

Management Concepts and the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL)® are partnering on a new generation of leadership development solutions designed specifically for the U.S. federal government marketplace.

By combining CCL’s award-winning content and innovative best practices with Management Concepts’ deep understanding of the public sector workforce, the organizations will create federally-focused versions of CCL’s leadership development programs. Management Concepts will deliver these programs as part of this exclusive agreement.

“We’re excited to adapt CCL’s world-class programs for federal leaders,” said Thomas F. Dungan, CEO of Management Concepts. “There has never been a greater need for career-changing, life-changing programs that were designed to prepare leaders for their current and future leadership roles. By growing the leadership capacity of the federal government, we feel we are helping it meet its core mission of service to the American public.”

“As a retired U.S. Navy Vice Admiral, I understand the critical importance of highly effective leadership in the federal government,” CCL President and CEO John R. Ryan said. “The federal government market is unique. Partnering with Management Concepts, which knows that market so well, makes it possible to meet and exceed the needs of the federal employees, extend our mission to more people, and have an even greater positive impact.”

The newly created programs will include:

• Leadership at the Peak for Federal Leaders
• Leading Strategically in the Federal Government
• The Effective Federal Leader
• Frontline Federal Leader Impact

More information about individual course content can be found at managementconcepts.com/CCL.

Learn More

About Management Concepts

Since 1973, Management Concepts has designed and delivered scalable, customized, and targeted learning solutions for the federal government. From individual course delivery to comprehensive organizational plans, our singular focus is identifying and addressing workforce skills gaps. Visit us at managementconcepts.com.

About the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL)®

At the Center for Creative Leadership, our drive to create a ripple effect of positive change underpins everything we do. For 50+ years, we’ve pioneered leadership development solutions for everyone from frontline workers to global CEOs. Consistently ranked among the world’s top providers of executive education, our research-based programs and solutions inspire individuals in organizations across the world — including 2/3 of the Fortune 1000 — to ignite remarkable transformations. Learn more about CCL.

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Government Leadership After Crisis: Resetting Your Mindset and Expanding Your Tool Set

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The post Management Concepts & CCL Partner to Strengthen Leadership Development for Federal Government appeared first on CCL.

With the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath still impacting the world and our economy, government leadership after crisis (and during it, of course) is still of primary importance. This webinar will uncover ways that government leaders can recalibrate mindsets, apply new toolsets, and develop new skillsets to emerge and thrive in a post-crisis world. Our government leadership experts will use lessons learned from past health crises to shape insights into how U.S. government leaders can maintain the safety of their employees while continuing their vital missions.

What You’ll Learn

In this webinar you’ll learn:

• A research-based model to describe and apply the 3 critical tasks of leadership,
• A post-crisis mindset based on military lessons and organizational experience drawn from CCL’s guidebook, Crisis Leadership,
• A new toolset for government leaders to leverage for planning beyond crisis and leading in the “new normal.”

Overcome the unique challenges of government leadership after crisis with our government leadership development programs and training tailored to your needs.

The post Government Leadership After Crisis: Resetting Your Mindset and Expanding Your Tool Set appeared first on CCL.

Here are 5 common misconceptions about government leadership and an analysis of how these myths about leadership in government stack up to reality.

Addressing Common Myths & Misconceptions About Federal Government Leadership

Government Leadership Myths vs. Reality

1. Government leadership is different from other forms of leadership.

Over the past few decades, our researchers have conducted several studies to compare leadership scores for government leaders with those of other industries, and have found there’s no major difference in leading a large organization in private industry, versus a large organization in government. What’s different is the context.

In other words, the way effective leadership plays out can seem different, depending on the challenges of that environment. (Learn more about our research comparing leadership challenges in the private sector to civil service, or comparing leadership challenges in civil service to the military.)

2. Government employees are more motivated by service than their non-government counterparts.

People working in government are thought to have a greater call to service than their peers in other industries.

But our research suggests otherwise. Their study found that federal and non-federal workers share similar motivations. Regardless of the sector, most employees are primarily motivated by their organization’s mission, followed by their own career motivations.

The takeaway? Leaders in all industries, including government, should focus on service and mission — and they must find innovative ways to boost employee motivation outside of financial incentives.

3. Military leaders are the best at forming and leading teams.

Military leaders are understandably revered for their skill at leading teams, so it stands to reason that they’re best at leading civilian/military teams in the public sector.

One flaw in that assumption? Our research shows that the major factor for career derailment among military officers is difficulty forming and leading teams at a senior level.

We have verified through interviews with both military and civilian senior leaders that many military officers come into positions with the same mentality they had as commanders in uniform, and they’re using the same techniques with civilians that they would with junior enlisted staff or junior officers.

Many times, the culture of the agency would not reward these behaviors, and the civilians, knowing the officers were leaving in just 18–24 months, would just wait them out.

The takeaway? At senior levels, authority is not as important as collaboration.

Leaders need to increase communication across agency and departmental silos to succeed; see how government leaders can collaborate across boundaries.

4. To succeed in government, leaders just need to focus on their technical specialties.

Another CCL study looked at the strengths and weaknesses of government leaders by analyzing 360-degree data. It found that government leaders’ coworkers saw “leading employees” among the the most important leadership competencies for federal government leaders.

To be effective, public service leaders must be able to balance technical and leadership abilities.

So in the government or not, leaders should ask themselves where they’re strong and where they need development. They then need to leverage their strengths to address any developmental factors.

For workers in government agencies, focus in particular on developing the specific skills that government leaders need to succeed.

5. Government leaders lack innovation and creativity to solve complex problems.

Are leaders in government service less effective than leaders in other industries? Evidence suggests otherwise. Leaders in government have done exceptional things — and have important strengths. Notably, they’re seen as quick to acquire new knowledge, they’re resourceful, and they’re willing to do whatever it takes to achieve agreed-upon goals.

These findings show that government agencies have a group of interpersonally skilled, intelligent, and committed leaders — a powerful asset on which to build in any organization.

But the government environment does create some unique constraints that may impact leaders’ ability to foster innovation. Still, there are ways that even more traditional organizations can innovate successfully.

Ready to Take the Next Step?

We have decades of experience researching government leadership myths and building stronger leadership skills among federal employees by tailoring our leadership training programs for government-sector employees through our Government practice. Learn more about our leadership programs that are GSA-approved for individual development.

The post 5 Government Leadership Myths: Correcting Misconceptions appeared first on CCL.