Common Leadership Development Challenges

I recently ran across a study conducted by McCall, Lombardo, & Morrison that overviewed 16 developmental experiences that are thought to have the greatest impact on a leader’s development. Given our recent small ‘l’ leadership papers on leader development, I thought this would be interesting. Here is a summary of the developmental challenges in the authors’ Lessons of Experience (1988).

Assignments:


1. Early work experiences: early non-managerial jobs



2. First supervision: first time managing people



3. Starting from scratch: building something from nothing



4. Fix it/turnaround: fixing/stabilizing a failing operation



5. Project/task force: discrete projects and temporary assignments done alone or as a part of a team



6. Scope: increase in numbers of people, dollars, and functions to manage



7. Line to staff switch: moving from line operations to corporate staff roles



Other People:


8. Role models: other people with exceptional (good or bad) qualities



9. Values played out: “snapshots” of chain-of-command behavior that demonstrate individual or corporate values



Hardships:


10. Business failure or mistakes: ideas that failed or deals that fell apart



11. Demotions/missed promotions/lousy jobs: not getting a coveted job or getting exiled



12. Employee performance problem: confronting an employee with a serious performance problem



13. Breaking a rut: taking on a new career in response to discontent with the current job



14. Personal traumas: crises and traumas such as divorce, illness, and death



Other events:


15. Coursework: formal courses



16. Purely personal: experiences outside of work (McCall, Lombardo, & Morrison, 1988)