Developmental Systems

This chapter proposes that thinking about leader and leadership development in terms of systems, rather than programs, is highly beneficial. Systems avoid the kind of piecemeal approaches to development that tend to be limited and limiting. Yet the leadership development field continues to be dominated by developmental programs and vendors have little to no barriers to entry in calling themselves leadership development experts. The result is that some programs and assessment packages are marketed and sold without any underlying evidence of their effectiveness. Leader development programs—by far the more typical approach is to focus on developing individual leaders—can be marketed as relatively quick fixes to the chronic organizational problem of how to improve its leadership. Programs offer attractive solutions to HR and talent management professionals that they are either ill-equipped to handle or would prefer to outsource. This chapter offers guidance on an alternative approach based on systems theory and design thinking.