Every talent professional is aware that a well-defined talent & leadership strategy is important. But few give a thought to the business context that’s needed to make that strategy happen.

One of the biggest barriers to successful talent & leadership development is a missing link between the skills leaders are learning and the business context. Yes, certain leadership skills—communication, delegation, coaching, etc.—are universal. But you, your stakeholders, and your leaders still need to know the “why” behind how these skills move the business forward. We call the “why” your business context and drivers. They are the first step to identifying and prioritising the key skills you want to build in any integrated talent leadership development strategy or program.

Developing leaders through competencies

CEOs who understand the importance of a talent & leadership strategy are explicit about the kind of leadership they need in order to achieve their organisation’s business strategy. To set their talent & leadership strategy, they must first examine key talent, leadership drivers of the business to understand the implications for leadership.

Too often, organisations hold onto an old list of leadership competencies (or just keep endlessly adding to their existing list). Others create talent programs that are too generalised by not factoring in the specific business strategies of their organisation. This disconnected approach to developing organisational and individual leadership won’t equip senior management, up-and-coming talent, or everyday leaders to adapt to change and meet new goals.

When setting bold strategies that call for changes in the direction or capabilities of the organisation, one of the first questions to ask is: Do we have the leadership we need for the strategy we’ve set? And the answer must be aligned with the business contexts (i.e., business drivers, situations & capabilities that are identified as the most critical approaches to the success of the organisation & its strategies).

Addressing context in talent & leadership development

Business contexts or drivers are “the key organisational factors that shape the business performance, and that are identified as key factors & capabilities that are most critical to the success of the organisation and its strategies.” They are not strategies in themselves or goals, but they are key focused approaches business leaders should be able to adopt and manage. Examples include: Entering new global markets, driving profitable growth, leading geographically dispersed teams, operating with high resource constraints, and cultivating a customer focused culture. 

In contextual situations that call for growing the business through cost-competitiveness, the best leaders’ development tends to focus on being methodical, organised and detail-oriented. They thrive on being busy and are competitive and goal oriented. Contrast this with a business context/driver that calls for driving creativity and innovation. Here, the most successful leaders’ development tends to focus on being creative, ambitious, critically evaluating information, and optimistic. 

The science of context increases our ability to predict leader success by measuring how effective leaders are at dealing with challenges. In its recent leadership study – the revolutionary science behind succession planning- SHL states that leadership and succession decisions become 4X more accurate when context is considered.

However, talent professionals must be aware of the integration of the different types of contexts in designing and managing talent & leadership programs or strategies: there are three types of contexts to consider. We refer to these as self, role, and business. 

Because these different contexts exist together, talent professionals must consider all the three contexts in building the development approach, and the talent & leadership strategy should be ready to support several talent & leadership development scenarios.

The context-based approach enables any organisation to identify, assess, select and develop leaders with greater precision, which in turn leads to greater leader success. To identify the key contexts required to build a context-based talent & leadership strategies, the following three steps are highly recommended:

1. Run a talent executive discussion with the business leaders to agree on the key talent outcomes the business strategically needs, and the key business drivers & capabilities the talent strategies or programs should be aligned with – for more details, you can check my article “the talent discussion executives need to have”.
2. Usually, we look forward to identifying key 3-5 business contexts and drivers (some studies like SHL’s recent study recommends identifying 8 of these). The identified contexts should cascade down into key development themes. For example, the context of “growing the business through cost-competitiveness” requires a development theme focused on being methodical, organised, competitive, forward-thinker, and goal-oriented.
3. Design your talent & leadership development approach to integrate the identified business contexts (drivers) along with how current or future leaders can develop specific personal traits (self-context) and the job role capabilities (role context).