Editorial summary. This is our text summary of an article published by gnews-leadership-development. Charts, figures, and the author’s full voice are at the original — read it there .
Editorial verdict
Vendor-influenced. The core finding — that leadership development investment correlates with business performance — is plausible and consistent with prior literature, but the study is sponsor-funded by BetterUp, the data is self-reported, and the conclusions conveniently align with the sponsor's commercial interests. Treat the directional findings as informative, not authoritative.
Executive summary
This article presents findings from a two-year study on corporate leadership development conducted by Josh Bersin and his research firm, with financial support from BetterUp. The central argument is that organizations have significantly neglected leadership development in the years following the pandemic, despite evidence that investment in this area correlates more strongly with business growth than other HR expenditures. The article presents a series of statistics derived from the study to illustrate the scale of underinvestment: only 25% of companies report their leadership development delivers high value, only 17% are growing their leadership development budgets, and more than 60% spend under $500 per person annually on management development. The author attributes this decline to organizational preoccupation with pandemic response, burnout, and reskilling initiatives. The article further argues that leadership development has implications beyond senior executives, extending to front-line employees and project-level managers. Bersin references the cultural transformation at Microsoft under Satya Nadella as an illustrative example of leadership model renewal driving organizational performance. The piece concludes by positioning leadership culture as the foundational element that sustains organizations during periods of disruption.
Key insights
- 1The study found leadership development investment correlates more strongly with business growth than other HR investment areas, according to the author's own research methodology.
- 2Quantitative indicators suggest widespread underinvestment: only 12% of companies reach the top tier of the JBC leadership maturity model, and over 60% spend less than $500 per person annually on leadership development.
- 3The article argues that leadership development is increasingly relevant at all organizational levels — not solely for high-potential or senior leaders — citing Marriott's CHRO as an example of this democratization in practice.
Practical takeaways
- Organizations spending under $500 per person annually on leadership development may be significantly behind peers identified as high-performing in this study's maturity framework.
- The article identifies succession planning, leadership burnout monitoring, mentoring, and coaching as areas where the majority of organizations currently have limited or no formal programs.
Frameworks mentioned
JBC Maturity Model
A leadership development maturity model developed by the Josh Bersin Company, used in the study to assess organizational maturity across leadership program dimensions.
References
- Satya Nadella / HarperCollins (2017).Hit Refresh.
Source & Provenance
gnews-leadership-development
Not specified
November 1, 2023
Industry Report
Global
Original source metadata is preserved. AI analysis is generated separately.
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