A Surprising Secret To Leadership Development

When my company recently hosted a webinar on leadership development, I asked several polling questions to make sure I was addressing attendees' key concerns. One question asked attendees to choose their current top priority in their development programs: content, coaching, connection or something else. The big winner? Connection.

Photo by Anna Shvets

Connection Is Key

Surprised? That response actually tracks with what I’m seeing as I work with corporate clients. Leadership today requires a greater focus on collaboration and relationships. Positive connections at work have been shown to make employees happier and more engaged. (With employee engagement at an 11-year low, that’s a pretty big deal.) At the same time, though, the rise of remote and hybrid work is adding an extra level of challenge to creating strong workplace cultures and a sense of community.

While connection is definitely on the radar of most leaders, the potential of leadership development programs to create that connection often is not. But I've found that bringing employees together doesn’t just enhance learning; it also helps them build lasting relationships that support their success and the organization’s.

If you’re involved in selecting a new leadership development program for your company, or even updating your current one, consider how the program fosters the types of connections I've listed below. As my own company developed our digital platform, this was a key consideration in the design, and it has made a big difference in its adoption and employee engagement.

Employee-Peer Relationships

I’m starting here because the value of healthy peer relationships often gets overlooked. If members of a team rarely work in person, or if everyone tends to keep their head down when they are together, leadership development might be one of the rare chances they have to get to know each other outside of their daily routines.

A good training program can help your employees better appreciate each other’s value and understand each other’s perspectives. It can also help employees feel invested in each other’s success, which increases accountability. You could even build peer-to-peer learning into your leadership development program, which helps disseminate best practices, break down silos and stretch your training budget.

Employee-Manager Relationships

When an employee takes part in a leadership training program, that doesn’t mean their development is off their manager's plate. Look for training options that involve managers in their team members’ growth. For example, the employee could have regular check-ins with their manager about goals they set in their leadership development program. Or the manager could help ensure employees get real-world opportunities to use the new skills they’re learning.

Any leadership development program you implement should also align with your organization’s approach to helping employees grow. In other words, don’t select a program that’s at odds with how you train managers to coach employees.

Employee-Executive Relationships

With the rise of hybrid work, there’s a risk of employees’ worlds becoming too small. We all have a lot fewer chances to strike up impromptu conversations in the hallway. Employees may lose sight of the bigger picture beyond their own team. On top of that, they may be missing out on opportunities to interact with the higher-level leaders who make decisions about their advancement.

Effective leadership development programs can restore some of those opportunities. For example, as part of the program, participants could be assigned a special project that they present to higher-ranking leaders. Even better? Build mentorship and sponsorship into your development programs. These key relationships can make all the difference in whether an employee achieves their career goals—and whether your organization will benefit from all they can bring to the table.

Employee-Company Relationships

This is another kind of relationship that often gets overlooked, but employees want to feel a connection with their organizations. Just as they do in their interactions with other people, they want to sense that their company values them, hears them and treats them with respect.

Investing in leadership development can deepen the loyalty your employees feel to your organization, which, in turn, affects engagement and retention. Research by LinkedIn has found that almost all employees would stay longer at an organization that cares about helping them learn and grow.

Ultimately, the secret to effective leadership development lies in its ability to strengthen the bonds that drive organizational success. By selecting programs that prioritize connection, companies can unlock the full potential of their workforce.

This article was originally published by Forbes.

Are You Developing Enough Leaders?

One of the biggest things we’ve learned from the pandemic and the other challenges of the past few years, is that we all need to lead today. Leadership skills are critical at every level. But, in too many organizations, leadership development programs are still reserved primarily for employees already identified as “HiPo’s” – high-potential and high-performing employees. In other words, the employees who receive the most leadership development are the very ones who need it the least because there performance is already strong. In an influential article for Harvard Business Review, professors Navio Kwok and Winny Shen call this phenomenon “the leadership development paradox.” In the long-term, this approach affects the quality, diversity, and size of an organization’s pipeline of leaders. But we can address it by providing leadership training opportunities to a wider array of employees.

Image by Tumisu from Pixabay

How Strong Is Your Leadership Pipeline?

When a company decides whether to invest in leadership development for an employee, they directly shape that employee’s career path. Employees who receive leadership development are more likely to be promoted to senior level, high-exposure roles. Meanwhile, employees outside of that high-potential group are more likely to stay at their current performance level or even get worse — because they’re getting less access to the leadership development programs that could help them improve as well as opportunities for career advancement.                       

When only a select group of employees gets greater access to leadership development, organizations miss out on what others could potentially contribute. Although budget is a key consideration, can we afford to do this? Even small improvements across a broader population can have a big impact on overall company performance and cultivate a sustainable culture of growth and innovation.

According to DDI’s Global Leadership Forecast 2023, CEOs are already worried about how to develop the next generation of leaders — and only 12% of companies are confident that they have a strong bench of leaders who are prepared to step into key roles.

As a firm with a niche focused on developing women leaders, we’re also concerned about how the leadership development paradox may disproportionately affect women. Ambition has increased, as shown in the McKinsey/LeanIn.org Women in the Workplace 2023 report, which  found that eight out of 10 women want to get promoted. The numbers are even higher for women younger than 30 and women of color (93% and 88%, respectively).

However, the report also found that women are still under-represented at every level of leadership. They’re less likely to get that first promotion to manager than men are. (And the gap is even bigger for women of color.) With fewer women than men rising through the ranks, it only makes sense that fewer women reach the highest levels of leadership.

How to Develop More Leaders

To fix the leadership pipeline, we must offer leadership development more broadly — but in a way that satisfies each individual’s needs while addressing tight schedules and company budgets. 

We embedded those principles into our New Lens® learning platform, added the same expertise we’ve used to help 75% of our clients get promoted, and packaged it all into bite-sized lessons and collaborative learning that employees can easily fit into their days.

Beyond considering something like New Lens, use these strategies to strengthen your leadership pipeline:

• Rethink how you identify potential leaders. DDI recommends using digital assessments to identify hidden talent.  They explain that “leaders may not recognize potential if it doesn’t align with what leadership has traditionally looked like in the organization,” adding that in remote or hybrid environments, some leadership skills may be overlooked.

• Tap into your internal expertise. How are you making the most of the vast knowledge your people can share with each other? Mentorship and sponsorship are surprisingly underused tools for cultivating future leaders. Also look for opportunities to use peer-to-peer cross-training to build relationships and leadership skills.

• Make key experiences more accessible. It’s common for organizations to have roles that are seen as a springboard to higher leadership positions. Is your organization inadvertently funneling only certain groups to these jobs? For example, are women pushed toward marketing and HR vs. operations?

Your organization can unlock limitless potential by investing in more leadership development opportunities for your employees. We live and breathe these issues with our Fortune 500 clients. So, as you consider your company’s short and long-term development needs, schedule a call with us. We would be happy to discuss how you can strengthen your pipeline of talent by unleashing more employees’ potential.

Are You Underutilizing These Powerful Ways to Close the Leadership Gap?

I have some bad news and some good news about mentorship and sponsorship at work. First, the bad news: These two strategies are extremely underused. According to Gallup, only 40% of employees have workplace mentors, and 23% have sponsors. The good news? Improving these numbers is low-hanging fruit and holds huge potential for increasing the number of women in senior leadership, enhancing engagement and retention and even bolstering the bottom line at your organization.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this topic after serving as one of the mentors at the Dallas Business Journal’s recent Mentoring Monday, a nationwide event sponsored by The Business Journals that brings together successful female business leaders and women who want to tap into their advice and insights.

Image by Sue Styles from Pixabay

As a longtime advocate for advancing women, I’m excited that we’re learning more about how to create meaningful results for individuals and their employers through relationships with mentors and sponsors. In honor of Women’s History Month, let’s take a deeper dive into this topic and make the case for your organization to invest in programs that integrate the power of both mentorship and sponsorship.

What Is the Difference Between Mentors and Sponsors?

Mentors and sponsors serve valuable, but not identical, roles in your network. Mentors typically serve as role models, providing advice and perspective to help you develop your skills and navigate challenging situations. Mentors can be at any level in the organization, with peer and reverse mentoring becoming more frequently used approaches. 

Sponsors, on the other hand, have clout and yield considerable influence on key decision-makers. Sponsors also give you critical exposure to opportunities and visibility to other influential leaders, and advocate on your behalf. 

As a longtime executive coach and the creator of a leadership development platform, I’m not surprised by how underutilized mentorship and sponsorship are. I’ve had many clients fall into the trap of thinking their good work is enough. It often takes people a while to realize that who they know is just as important as the quality of their work. They overlook how much their relationships give them access to resources, information and influence that they need to get work done and to advance their careers.

The Power of Support at Work

While mentorship and sponsorship are good for everyone, I’m especially intrigued by their potential to address an issue that many organizations struggle with: the leadership gap between men and women.

According to the Women in the Workplace 2023 report  from McKinsey in partnership with LeanIn.org, women are underrepresented at all stages of the leadership pipeline. While 48% of all entry-level employees are women, only 40% of managers are. The gap keeps getting broader all the way to the C-Suite, where men outnumber women by a more than 2-to-1 margin.

That’s a problem on many levels. Researchers have found that companies with more female leaders make more money, are more socially responsible and have better customer service. Female CEOs can even drive stock prices. Companies recognize these benefits, and many are increasing their efforts around leadership development for women.

These programs must include opportunities to develop relationships with mentors and sponsors. When you look at data from Gallup, the Women in the Workplace report and other recent research, it becomes clear why these relationships can be so beneficial for women’s careers:

• Women are more ambitious now than they were before the pandemic. In 2019, about 70% of women wanted to get promoted to the next level. Today, that figure is 81%. (For women under 30 — your organization’s rising generation of leaders —93% want promotions.) In other words, high-potential women want to know that they have a future at your organization. Gallup found that when an employee has a mentor or sponsor, they’re much more likely to feel that they have a clear path forward.

• Learning and growth are deeply important to your workforce. More than 9 out of 10 employees said they would stay at their company longer if it invested in helping them learn. Mentorship and sponsorship help address that demand. According to Gallup, employees with mentors are twice as likely to say they’ve had recent opportunities to learn and grow.

• Perhaps the greatest potential for mentorship and sponsorship programs lies in helping more women find sponsors. Currently, 25% of men have a sponsor at work, while only 22% of women do. According to Herminia Ibarra of London Business School:

Too few women are reaching the top of their organizations, and a big reason is that they are not getting the high-stakes assignments that are prerequisite for a shot at the C-suite. Often, this is due to a lack of powerful sponsors demanding and ensuring that they get these stepping-stone jobs.

Ibarra has also found that men and women describe their relationships with supporters differently: Women talk about how these relationships increase their self-understanding, while men talk about others endorsing them and helping them plan their career advancement.

How to Improve Mentorship and Sponsorship

So how can your organization maximize the power of mentorship and sponsorship to advance women leaders?

• Examine how the rise of hybrid work has affected who receives mentorship or sponsorship in your organization. For example, men are more likely than women to receive mentorship and sponsorship when they work onsite, according to the Women in the Workplace report.

• Start thinking about how to weave elements of mentorship or sponsorship into existing programs without overburdening participants or executives. While support relationships that develop on their own are great, formal programs can create even more impressive results, Gallup found.

• Whether or not you have a formal program, make sure your organization is teaching coaching skills. Potential mentors and sponsors are more likely to help when they have the right tools to do so.

• Consider a tool like the New Lens® platform that facilitates mentoring conversations. Our app leverages the power of both peer learning and manager feedback.

Finally, remember that we understand the power of mentorship and sponsorship at Newberry Solutions and we welcome the chance to answer your questions and share how New Lens and our other tools can empower you to support women leaders. Schedule a New Lens demo now, or get in touch with us for more information.

How to Make Hybrid Schedules Work for Men AND Women

Women, Men and Hybrid Work

Have you been thinking of hybrid work as just a “women’s issue”? The recent Women in the Workplace report from McKinsey and LeanIn.org debunks that narrative — but it also finds  some inequity between women’s and men’s experiences with hybrid work schedules. Based on the report, as well as my own conversations with clients and other business leaders, I want to share some ideas that will help you maximize the benefits of hybrid work for everyone in your organization, as well as make return-to-office initiatives less contentious and more productive.

Image by fancycrave1 from Pixabay

Flexibility Benefits Everyone

First, some good news. In large numbers, both men and women said that hybrid work has improved their work-life balance and reduced feelings of fatigue and burnout. Additionally, 83% of all respondents said one of the biggest reasons that they like hybrid work is that it helps them be more productive. 

It’s great to see this confirmation that it isn’t just women who value hybrid schedules. All too often, there’s a perception that women want to work remotely, while men prefer going back to the office. But, in reality,  women and men want control over where and when they work. Flexibility is one of the key benefits that attracts an employee to a company and keeps them there.

I was also happy to see the report address a trend I see playing out every day with the high-performing women I work with. In our new hybrid world, women are more likely to feel set up to succeed than they did in the past. Hybrid work has taken away a barrier to their ambition by making it easier to balance their career with other priorities, such as childcare and eldercare (both of which are still disproportionately handled by women).

Men Benefit More from In-Person Work

The Women in the Workplace report also points to some areas for improvement when it comes to how organizations are handling hybrid work.

It is disappointing to learn that men are still more likely than women to receive mentorship and sponsorship, to be looped in on information, and to be praised and rewarded when they work onsite. However, I wasn’t surprised, especially when it comes to sponsorship. While both mentors and sponsors give you advice, sponsors also advocate for you within your organization. They’re vital to career advancement, but there’s a long-term trend of more men than women having sponsorships.

The report also points out that women — especially women with traditionally marginalized identities  —  experience microaggressions at the office  more often than men do. Women are a little more likely than men (29% vs. 25%) to like hybrid work because it cuts down on unpleasant interactions with their coworkers. Another finding hints at what may be driving those interactions: There’s a big difference (53% vs. 36%) in how many women over men said that hybrid work reduces the pressure they experience about managing their personal style or appearance.

Recommendations for Organizations

So what actions should organizations take based on the Women in the Workplace report? As a firm that has a long track record of helping high-performing women succeed, we offer these ideas:

Right now, both men and women who work flexibly aren’t worried that it will affect their careers. However, as we see more news articles reporting that remote employees are more likely to be laid off, concerns could start rising. Make sure that your managers are trained to evaluate remote workers. For example, face time at the office should not be a key performance metric. You can also look at your performance review process to make sure it treats all employees fairly, whether they work onsite, remotely, or on a hybrid schedule.

While workplace conflict is unavoidable, keep in mind that employees may also be experiencing microaggressions, such as comments on their appearance. If your organization is pushing for more in-person work, consider offering some refreshers on microaggressions. When employees, especially women and other marginalized groups, feel more welcome and accepted, it’s only natural that they will want to be in the office more often.

Level the playing field for men and women, remote workers and onsite workers. Everyone should feel that they have access to the information, relationships, recognition and training that will benefit them. This was one of our big motivators in creating our New Lens® learning platform, which can be accessed 24/7, no matter where an employee is. (Go here to see it in action.) Also consider implementing programs that pair women with mentors and sponsors.

Hybrid work is here to stay. To reap its benefits and minimize disadvantages, organizations must be deliberate about shaping policies to promote equity and inclusivity. What is going well — and what isn’t — with hybrid work at your organization? What else can you do to make sure that hybrid schedules work for everyone?

12 Key Takeaways from the New Lens Micro Summit

What an amazing event we had last week! Of course, that's thanks to our wonderful speakers and to all of you, our engaged New Lens® Micro Summit: 4 Core Strategies for Success attendees. I’m still soaking in all the insights that were shared and am so grateful to each of you who joined us.

Reflecting on the summit, it's clear that each speaker brought a unique perspective, shedding light on critical areas of leadership, teamwork, networking, and resilience. I've taken a moment to recap a few of the takeaways that stood out to me. Whether you attended the summit or are catching up now, I believe these insights will resonate and offer actionable strategies for your own leadership journey. Let's dive in.

Michol Ecklund

Michol, Chief Sustainability Officer and General Counsel at Callon Petroleum, has navigated change throughout her career. So who better to speak on the topic “Focus on the Right Work: The Great Resignation Compounded Workloads”?

In her comments, Michol highlighted the emerging challenges post-pandemic where workers are increasingly unhappy, burnt out, and seeking new job opportunities, often attributed to amplified workloads from organizational restructuring. Here are some highlight from the advice she shared:

• Create space to connect in a genuine way. Remember, everyone has a life outside work. Don’t be afraid to be vulnerable with your team. “By checking in with others and sharing more about your own situation, I think you ultimately build deeper relationships,” Michol said. “You build even more motivated employees and even more committed employees that want to be part of your organization.”  

• Balance your personal productivity with that of the team. You may be more productive working from home, but your team may be more productive if everyone spends more time at the office. Find an approach that considers both sets of needs.

• Get back to the basics to avoid burnout. Getting enough sleep is critical. It affects how you show up personally and professionally, your energy, and your ability to be productive.

Mark Benton

Mark, Vice President of HR Corporate Functions at McKesson, also talked about navigating the shift to hybrid work when tackling his topic, “Develop a High Performing Team: How Unprepared Leaders Impact the Workplace.” I so admire Mark's ability to surface important topics that need attention. 

One theme that stood out was the challenge of staying connected when working remotely. In this context, building trust and understanding your own strengths and weaknesses are vital for good leadership. Other highlights:

• Empathy is more important than ever in the world of hybrid work. Your team members want to know that you care about them as people, that you recognize what they are contributing and that you are willing to help them.

• Managers today have to help distributed teams stay connected. One way to do this: be very intentional about checking in with each other.

• Be more of an "ask person" than a "tell person". You can help your team members grow by asking coaching questions.

Hilda Galvan

Hilda, Partner-in-Charge at Jones Day Dallas, spoke on the topic “Build a Powerful Network: How Remote Work Affects Relationships & Productivity.” Hilda is gifted at cultivating relationships both professionally and in her community involvement, so I was thrilled that she could share her advice with us. 

She advised leaders not to favor in-office workers over remote ones and to communicate clearly. Building relationships, even when remote, is key to good leadership. A few key takeaways:

• To get people back to the office, talk about why it’s so important. For example, remind veteran team members how much they learned by being around colleagues who were senior to them. Today, they can do the same thing for younger employees. By broadening their perspective,

• Engaging with issues you care about will energize you and can help counteract any feelings of loneliness from remote work. Connecting with others who share your passion can also lead to meaningful relationships.

• Treat small pockets of time in your day as opportunities to maintain relationships. For example, call an old friend while you’re driving to a meeting across town.

Tina Bigalke

As Global Chief Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Officer at PepsiCo and someone with a wealth of leadership experience in business and HR, Tina was the perfect speaker to talk about the topic “Build Leadership Courage & Resilience: Strategies to Navigate Uncertainty”. 

She also gave us insight into how PepsiCo has been a training ground for so many Fortune 500 CEOs and shared PepsiCo’s holistic resilence model which has helped its staff navigate these challenging times.

Some key insights:

• Identify the capabilities and skills your organization will need for the future (not just for today) and assess your employees against those skills.

• Don’t be afraid to have honest conversations with employees about how they’re doing and their path forward in your organization. 

• Have a variety of development tools in place for employees, especially younger ones, who truly want to gain new skills.

More Micro Learning

A huge thanks to Michol, Mark, Hilda and Tina for packing so much valuable information into just a couple of hours. It was so important to us that this event fit into busy schedules and deliver a powerful payoff for just a short investment of time. That’s the same philosophy that drives Newberry Solutions’ award-winning New Lens® app. With “snack size” lessons combined with collaborative learning, New Lens makes leadership development affordable and scalable. I invite you to learn more and schedule a demo for your organization.

Our New White Paper: Managers Under Pressure

At Newberry Solutions, we work with some of the world’s top companies. That means we get a firsthand look at the latest challenges organizations are facing, as well as how they are doing in meeting those challenges.

Across all fields, we’ve seen a clear trend emerge. Managers are more important than ever in helping organizations navigate key issues. But, at the same time, managers are more likely to suffer from burnout than either higher-level leaders or individual contributors are. In other words, the very people your company likely needs most right now are at high risk of disengaging or even leaving.

That’s why we created our new special report, “Managers Under Pressure: Why these key employees are feeling squeezed in 2023 — and what you can do to support them.” In it, you will learn:

• The current state of both layoffs and resignations, and all the ways that this turbulent employment environment places additional burdens on managers.

• What the “new normal” of remote and hybrid work looks like, and how managers are dealing with it.

• The cumulative effects of three change-filled years on a stressed-out workforce.

• How to support your managers’ wellbeing and productivity so that they can support your organization’s success.

Take a moment now to download your own copy of “Managers Under Pressure.” We hope that it will become a valuable resource for you and that you’ll share it with other forward-thinking leaders. After you read it, we’d love to hear your feedback and questions. So please tag me in your LinkedIn posts about our white paper, or contact us directly at info@newlensleadership.com.