Leaders In London

Martin Sorrell, CEO of the advertising and marketing group giant WPP, has been in the news recently , pouring resources into China. His reasoning is that if you are leading for growth, then you have to look to be where the growth will be. And it won’t be America. Sorrell spoke at Leaders in London for us last year and a clip is below, in which he talks about this strategy.

Of our 2008 speakers, Andy Cosslett, CEO of IHG, the hotels giant whose brands include Holiday Inn, is also expanding the company’s presence in China - spectacularly so. IHG already employs 32,000 people in China. It needed to recruit 20,000 more before the end of this year to keep up with its expansion plans.

Like all of us, IHG faces a war for talent in moving into new regions. So, they grow their own. They are building 22 IHG Academy sites in China to train local people and then recruit them. Twelve of the sites have been built already and thousands of local Chinese are trained to IHG standards in how to run a hotel and then employed each year. IHG’s future leaders within China will emerge from these new cohorts they are developing themselves.

So, to lead for growth in tough trading conditions, it seems you need to look East, not West. Are you facing the right way? And are you putting the resources in to get the results you will need? More from Martin Sorrell in the clip, below.

“The job of a leader today is not to create followers.
It’s to create more leaders.”
- Ralph Nader

From the free leadership e-book The Little Book of Leadership

You can download your free e-book on this link (I think you have to register if you aren’t already registered) The Leaders in London Little Book of Leadership

Each year IBM surveys 400 business leaders worldwide and asks them what their top concerns are. And each year for the past three years, lack of effective leadership has been right up there at or near the top, as holding back growth. This year’s report (The Global Human Capital Study, 2008) was published this week and goes further than any previous reports in saying there is a leadership vacuum in large organizations. Here’s what the report says: 

Direction, feedback and clarity needed 

“Companies are finding themselves with a leadership vacuum, with fewer individuals who have the knowledge and experience to guide others through necessary business transformations. Without leaders who can provide the direction, feedback and clarity needed to navigate in a more complex world, companies will struggle to achieve business goals.” 

A significant barrier to growth 

“A lack of leadership capability has become a significant barrier to growth for many organizations… Without sufficient leadership talent, who will setthe direction? Who will paint the vision? Who will lead the change? It’s not only an HR issue. It is a business imperative….” When asked “What do you see as the primary workforcerelated issues facing the organization?”, the second highest answer was ‘lack of leadership’, coming second only to ‘inability to rapidly develop skills to address current/future business needs.’  

Inability to develop future leaders is a major problem 

The report goes on to highlight that most organizations are struggling to develop  future leaders. The report says:  “Not only are companies concerned with their current leadership capacity, they are confronted by their inability to develop future leadership talent …. Over 75 percent of companies indicate building leadership talent is a significant challenge. 

So, what do we do about it? 

We seem to learn best and be inspired by real leaders with real stories to tell, backed up with practical experience-sharing. Joining a community of practice – real leaders really doing the job in real time – and learning from each others’ experience, is likely to be an accelerant to any in-house leadership training and development initiatives. You could start by attending Leaders in

London at the end of this month, being inspired by the bank of world leaders on the stage, and networking with the hundreds of practising leaders among the attendees. And Leaders in

London attendees are entitled to free membership of www.TheLeadershipHub.com, the world’s online leadership community, where leadership practitioners and experts share experiences and learning. 

Good luck in dealing with that vacuum!