Many efforts to develop leaders fail to deliver results. Yet the need for transformational leadership at all levels has never been more critical.
Companies around the world spend billions each year on leadership training—workshops, webinars, certificates, and the like—and much of that money is wasted. That’s because most leadership development training happens in a vacuum. Employees attend a one-off session, return to their desks, and quickly forget what they learned.
The strategic implications of this missed opportunity can be significant. Given the massive shift to virtual work environments and hybrid models that combine remote and onsite work, we at BCG believe that transformational leadership—the kind that fosters a culture of empowerment and inclusion, engages employees, and builds high-performing, agile teams—is more important than ever.
To develop the next generation of leaders, BCG uses a “design for adoption” methodology, grounded in cutting-edge behavioral science. This leadership strategy helps people build new capabilities every single day and adapt their behaviors within the context of daily routines.
BCG’s leadership development consulting shines a light on what makes certain leaders excel while others languish—and then incorporates those best practices into the flow of daily work to foster inclusive leadership. Our approach to leadership development is both highly operational and tightly linked to value creation:
In this way, leaders learn how to become great within the context of their daily work—using a growth-oriented, purpose-driven, and sustainable approach that pays dividends over their entire career.
Leadership development matters so much because the actions and attitudes of leaders drive performance in several ways: improving employee engagement, enhancing productivity, and cultivating an innovative and inclusive business culture. BCG’s leadership development consulting deploys a full spectrum of solutions to help companies shape the leaders they need and drive business growth.
Frontline-Leader Enablement uses our innovative “design for adoption” approach to build leadership muscle among frontline leaders. By implementing practical daily routines and using simple tools to practice leadership at work, frontline leaders not only develop skills that have a direct and meaningful impact on colleagues, customers, and business results, but also play a role in coaching others.
Executive Coaching helps leaders identify optimal behaviors, recognize what gets in the way of adopting these behaviors, and reinforce new ways of working that will drive strong results for the business. A cadre of prominent former senior executives who have led large-scale transformations, now BCG senior advisors and certified coaches, share battle-tested methodologies with leaders undertaking change.
BCG’s Leadership & Talent Enablement Center helps companies develop inclusive leadership, build a stronger talent pipeline, and implement continuous learning strategies to close critical skill gaps.
Amethyst, BCG’s learning and behavior change app, supports leadership development training and coaching through digital nudges, text messages, emails, apps, and gamification—all of which are grounded in behavioral economics.
Here are a few of the BCG consultants who bring their expertise in inclusive leadership and leadership team development to bear at our clients.
Agile for Leaders
For agile to succeed, leaders need to get out of their comfort zone. They need to embrace, reinforce, and—crucially—practice new behaviors.
By implementing a capability-building program, a global services company transformed the culture for 6,000 frontline leaders across 60 locations, improving overall business performance.
To remain competitive, a retailer needed to revamp its stores to become more customer centric and improve employee morale. BCG helped empower the in-store leaders who were closest to consumers through a transformation effort that refined roles, strengthened communication channels, and used peer coaching and immersion learning to build capabilities. As a result of the engagement, the retailer saw employee engagement levels more than double, customer feedback reach its highest levels ever, and market share rise more than 200 basis points in a year.
Ulrike Schwarz-Runer, a managing director and senior partner and BCG's general counsel, shares her reflections on the value of having a mentor, though she believes this term to be inadequate.
Companies around the world spend more than $40 billion a year on leadership and talent development initiatives, but fall short in terms of returns on investment. BCG’s Debbie Lovich explains why this happens and how to address and overcome these challenges.
To create the necessary excitement and engagement for a successful digital transformation, you need to get visible commitment from the CEO and executive team, and secure the buy-in of middle managers by empowering them.
