By Natalie Michael, CPHR

Learning and development is a topic that is near and dear to my heart.  Supporting executives to be successful is what I have done for the last decade, and I can’t imagine stopping anytime soon.  At the heart of my work is supporting people to learn and grow.  A fundamental belief I hold is that we all have an unlimited capacity to learn and develop ourselves, and that when we share our knowledge and experience we create a better world.  It seems that many organizations who are at the leading edge of leadership development share this point of view.

Charles Masters is the president of Cummins Western Canada, an exclusive distributor for Cummins Inc., the world’s largest independent manufacturer of diesel engines and a global leader in power generation technology.  Along with his day job of providing executive leadership for 14 branch locations across BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Western Ontario, Masters is also a participant in the company’s world class leadership programs.

I had the pleasure of talking to Masters about his experience, how these programs are helping him develop his own executive capability, and why he believes they are important for the company overall.  I also spoke with Terry Dillon, the CEO of The Refinery Leadership Partners, an international leadership consulting firm in Vancouver to find out what he sees as important for executive learning and growth.

Self-Awareness and Leadership Purpose
When I asked Masters about his executive development priorities he smiled as he reminisced about the early days as a participant of the leadership program at Cummins, a program he is still involved with today.  He explains: “Our programs are teaching me who I am as a person, and how I need to link my authentic self with what we need to achieve in the business.”

He goes on to explain that in their Authentic Leadership program, developed by Manfredo Curtis and Associates, participants have to complete a Leadership Purpose overview of who they are as a leader, including their formative experiences, strengths, values, motivations, and opportunities for growth.  As the program unfolds they present their purpose to their colleagues for feedback and further input.

Masters believes that a foundation of self awareness is critical for leaders whether they are at the president level or newly starting out, and that a program that delivers this kind of experience is foundational for career growth.

“By taking this program I am clarifying my strengths, and what I bring to the team.  It helps me to be intentional about surrounding myself with people who complement each other,” Masters says, explaining that this is the work that shapes who he wants to be and how he wants to show up.

As an executive coach, I echo his comments.  I have found that leaders need self-awareness to refresh their purpose when they take on new roles.  Companies use many different techniques to help executives achieve this, including personality, conflict, and team assessments. Moreover, coaching will often help executives to see their blind spots and sort through outdated perceptions about leadership which may not serve them at higher levels in the business.

Deliberate Practice an Olympian Virtue
As CEO of the Refinery Leadership Partners, ex-rower for the national rowing team in the UK, and past Olympian, Terry Dillon agrees that self-awareness is important, yet he believes that the value of deliberate practice can not be overlooked.  He challenges leaders to ask themselves a powerful question: “If you were an Olympian striving for a gold medal what would be important for your success?”

He believes we can support people to learn and grow in organizations by mirroring development practices in athletics.   Dillon goes on to explain:  “Elite athletes continuously ask themselves what they need to focus on to ensure success, and they practice techniques for ensuring they deliver when the expectations are high, and the pressure is on.”

As a coach I am in full agreement with Dillon’s comments and I will often ask clients to consider: “Where is optimal performance important for you?  In your role, where is a gold standard of performance important?”  This helps executives to pinpoint where they need to be their best, and where they need to stretch themselves and focus on deliberate practice.  It also starts a conversation about mindset and how their personal psychology may impact their success.

Taking Business Acumen to the Next Level
Of course, leadership development also requires executives to cultivate business skills that will help them make sound business decisions and develop business strategies in an increasingly-complex world.  Many Fortune 100 companies are pushing the envelope and investing heavily in exposing executives to the kinds of business challenges that are important for their future success.

For example, at Cummins  the executive program exposes people to different areas of the business and top business issues globally.  As Masters explains: “Our executive participants help to design significant pieces of the program curriculum themselves.  We create learning themes, and assign people to teams to lead multi-day sessions on each theme.  Then, each team is responsible for creating a first rate learning experience for their colleagues.”

Learning Leaders Open the Doors
When working with leading organizations, I have found it to be powerful when the executives play a role in developing the curriculum themselves.  For example, one client I worked with wanted to support leaders to better analyze financial statements, so they  brought in top experts from Wall Street to teach leaders about how to analyze business value, and performance.

Another firm wanted to scale and grow to $1billion in revenue, and they knew they couldn’t learn how to do this from a book.  In this case, the executive team instigated a quarterly learning session where they invited executives with experience scaling a business to come and talk to their team about their experience and share pointers.

In another instance, an executive team wanted more exposure to strategy so the CEO created a strategy council, a team of five leaders who participated in strategic planning for a two-year term.

Raising the Leadership Bar Inspires
I have found that once these type of programs gain momentum the participants try to raise the bar from the previous cohort and work hard to raise the bar year after year.  Of course, they also require strong executive sponsorship and the willingness to trust in the talents of others.

So, learning from these shared experiences, you can see that self-awareness, deliberate practice, and strategic exposure are top of mind for CEOs, as they think about learning and development.  Having these types of programs in your organization will present opportunities for growth that surpass participants’ expectations and push the company to evolve to new heights.

Natalie Michael is a CEO and executive coach with the Karmichael Group and a MacKay CEO Forums chair. She coaches executives who want to extract more meaning from their work, refine their leadership style, and be more influential in challenging (and sometimes political) environments.

(PeopleTalk Fall 2016)