The Chronos in Developing Leaders

I’ve come to a very deep belief that leaders grow leaders. If an organization is going to build a succession effort which includes a robust leader development approach, you begin by finding your best leaders and gathering them together for as long as they can stand it to think and plan how to grow the next generation. But, Often the question comes up, So where do you begin in growing new leaders? As people often say when put on the spot.

Many people have begun to refer to the "what" about future leaders as "the 3Cs"— competencies, character qualities, and chronos (or how leaders use their time).

Chronos

Let’s start with the toughest one—not the toughest one to flesh out perhaps, but the toughest one to actually pull off every day. Chronos. In fact chronos is the very problem you create when you begin with the premise that leaders grow leaders—can these senior leaders make the time to do the thought work it requires to put together a good leader development effort? In my experience, the best leaders will do this and love it. But it comes at a price.
So why start with chronos when most people are concerned about competency and character? Well, in the experience of many, the show stopper in implementing leadership development turns out to be chronos—how leaders use their time, and particularly in one of their key responsibilities—growing other leaders.

Here are a couple of issues you’re likely to need to resolve. It would be interesting to see how some folks have tackled these. First, leader development efforts that produce the best leaders need senior leaders not only to plan the initiative, but also to take an active part as coaches, mentors, teachers, and, of course, as examples. And that takes the most precious resource any of us have as leaders—not budget dollars, but time. This requires a change in behavior and hence culture because most experienced leaders will say that the higher up they went, the more their time is occupied by meetings that "required" their presence and that the advent of e-mail and Blackberries has them on a non-stop information overload tether to their boss and their employees. This issue is precisely why the best leadership development programs identify 3Cs—because it is critical to success that time priority for leaders is blocked for just that purpose.

A second issue around chronos is that most leadership development programs require the participants to be away from their real job for a period of time—to attend classes, to take part in action learning projects, to be on some form of rotational or temporary assignment, etc. The issue here is that many supervisors of the participants do not have the same level of understanding or commitment as the leaders who helped design the program. There is also a feeling of "ownership"—that the participants are assets of their organization and work priorities come first. Here is what people in the private sector and the public sector say is the basic sticking point—future leaders need to be seen by the entire organization as "corporate assets" not as personal property of a single branch or division or manager.

So what do you think? What would you suggest in getting senior leaders to re prioritize their time so that they are able to serve the development needs of those behind them and those of the organization? Has anyone seen this work well where you are? What are some good ways that participants in leadership development programs can be helped to be freed up by their bosses for this critical task? Any experiences to share?