Development & Business results are interlinked comprehensively. Unless business leaders &
HR/OD leaders don’t work together to create and
support this linkage, a virtual tug of war will pull
people in opposite directions. InspireOne provides complete leadership development solution for your company.
With change being the only constant, no two
leadership situations are the same. While
organizations today realize the importance of right
leadership in driving success; they are unsure about
how to develop their potential talent.
This paper is built on our insights from client
experiences and hopefully comes as an aid to
organizations in designing learning journeys that
make a difference.
Finding the fulcrum
Leadership does not exist in a vacuum or within the
boundaries of an organization. Not only do
organizations get impacted by dynamic change but
also the increased turmoil coming from the need to
balance a number internal and external forces. Let’s
look at some of these alternate forces, additionally
impacting organizations today :
• A continuously evolving business environment,
creating unknown complexities and challenges,
and bringing with it a constant need within
organizations to simplify its processes and
• With the wheel turning from consumption to
experiential consumption, a need for
organizations to switch gears between proﬁt
oriented business and business that is customer
• Changing work proﬁles especially the millennial
who challenge the organizations with an
impatient requirement for individual growth while
organizations face challenges in balancing these
needs with organization priorities.
These above inconsistencies coupled with
competitive pressures calls for each organization to
re-design itself and - ﬁnd its own fulcrum.
Towards the start of new decade, each organization
will struggle to ﬁnd this unique point of balance,
and leadership who will both create it and lead
dynamic change towards this fulcrum.
The shifting wheel
In meeting the demands of the earlier described
context, organizations globally are moving from
standard processes and models to more agile
systems. However, the CEO is no longer comforted
only by models and processes, he demands the
right ’leader’ - ready & developed to take on
The good news is that, to meet the demand of the
changing environment and stakeholders like the
CEO, L&D strategies too are changing their
paradigms. We call this phenomena - The shifting
Below we highlight few global trends in L&D which
are gaining sharper focus in organizations :
Global trends in L&D
Alternate forces impacting
Wheel turning from
Changing work proﬁles
A famous saying "Everything changes and nothing remains still .. ... you cannot step twice into
the same stream" - deﬁnes today's leadership development.
Event based to
just in time
Trainer lead to
• Potential development for emerging leaders is a
motivator. Leaders/participants feel more
engaged and empowered as a result of
understanding what needs to be developed and
how this would happen because of the
integrated approach the journey provides.
• Because of the adoption of the concept of
70:20:10 by organizations a more holistic and
effective development framework has come into
existence. Development focus has moved up
However, equally, there are challenges that this
approach has brought.
Our experience of working with learning journeys
over the past 5 years
Since Indian organizations have been immersed in
scripting their growth stories for the past few years,
leadership development has followed as a natural
progression. In our experience, most organizations
fully understand that development is not just an
event and much more needs to be done to create
business results. Enter - leadership development
journeys, emanating from this understanding.
Looking back at our experience, the results of these
journeys has indeed been a mixed bag for
organizations, consulting partners and the
participant leaders themselves.
Some of the positive experiences are mentioned
• Greater focus on assessments has brought more
data and better clarity around development gaps.
1. While all stakeholders understand the value & importance of leadership development, the focus given is
still not enough. Balancing the results in the here and now vs. the important but not urgent development
journeys, is no easy task for stakeholders, and even those leaders committed to their development ﬁnd
their focus wavering.
2. Leadership development is real hard work. Besides the ecosystem support, it requires insightful
understanding of strengths & gaps by the participant leaders and a strong support through coaching to
build behaviors. The learning processes adopted by organizations are usually disjointed, based on “what
sells internally” and is easy to implement. The measures are loosely deﬁned and focused on less
relevant things-eg feedback scores post workshops. Partly this is because it is hard to do harder things
in an already complicated world. And mostly, because it requires a shift in mindset & skill set of
stakeholders-always tough to accomplish. Companies and leaders who decide to embark on this journey
need to be prepared to work hard.
3. We spoke about disjointed processes earlier - Our experience is that one way that organizations respond
to leadership journeys is by looking at partners who are known & credible in their areas. These
“specialist” partners are great in their speciﬁc areas, but integrating the speciﬁc pieces together
becomes another big challenge, leading to a considerable loss of effectiveness.
4. Most organizations ﬁnd it diﬃcult to manage the 70% learning (70; 20; 10 principle). They lack skills to
link competencies to on - the - job business projects that are supported by effective learning structures.
Skill gaps in coaching further reduces the eﬃcacy of leadership journeys especially where behavior
development is key.
5. Leadership behaviors of engaging in development process continues to be less visible particularly in not
so mature organizations where measurements/KPIs’ around “developing talent’ are not in place.
Obviously, such organizations have challenges in building a development culture.
6. For a participant leader, the consequence of a hard earned development has to be some movement -
ﬁrstly the changed behavior has to be acknowledged, next the insight of how this is of help in the current
role or future role has to be established. Most often, this is left to the individual to ﬁgure. It is no wonder
that the once motivated participant leader soon becomes a passive follower.
What then are the options that organizations have?
1. Development & Business results are interlinked
comprehensively. Unless business leaders &
HR/OD leaders don’t work together to create and
support this linkage, a virtual tug of war will pull
people in opposite directions. When reviewing
people processes, companies would do well to
link these strongly to business results.
2. OD/L&D functions need to build conﬁdence in
their abilities to add value to business, constantly
build relevant skills, get out of their silos to work
shoulder to shoulder with business.
3. Build KPIs’ around developing people and ensure
that these are a part of every leader’s goal sheet.
Ensure skills of coaching & developing others is in
place and these are reviewed periodically. Create
space to learn.
4. Review Competency/Talent frameworks
periodically, so that the measurement &
development is happening in the right areas.
5. Most important is to build commitment. Take
small bites. Learning journeys are a must for
organizations - but sustaining them to get the
right results requires alignment, skills &
leadership behaviours. Keep at it - you would
arrive at desired results, slowly but surely.
Leadership development is not a choice. While
discussions for answering questions like - develop
for now/develop for future or develop all vs develop
potential leaders will carry on , the key point is that
organizations need to ﬁnd their fulcrum, learn from
the past and embark on leadership development
journeys with clear measures around what will
create the most signiﬁcant results. Combined with a
distinct approach & a design to deliver multiple
learning experiences organizations can hope to
accelerate leadership capital signiﬁcantly.
We, hereby acknowledge the efforts of following individuals from InspireOne’s Leadership
Practice, for developing this report:
Mrs. Neeta Mohla
Head of Leadership Practice, InspireOne
Ms. Sadhvee Manocha
Management Trainee, Leadership Practice, InspireOne
We are a leading consulting ﬁrm offering
organizational and leadership development
With nearly two decades of experience in the
consulting domain, we help organizations convert
their people and organizational capabilities into
corporate value. We want to see businesses
We believe that the road to unparalleled success is
when organizations are able to convert their most
valuable asset- their human capital- to
organizational capability. That is why InspireOne
has united with a single purpose- of being the
preferred partner in helping organizations and
leaders grow by unleashing the optimal power and
potential of their people.
Our partners are leaders in their respective areas of expertise with years of researched know - how and
worldwide experience. Together, we catalyze and improve business performance by developing your most
valuable talent - your people.