To Help Others Develop, Start With Yourself

Great leaders encourage leadership development by openly developing themselves. Dr Marshall Goldsmith believes that one of the best ways top executives can get their leaders to improve is to work on improving themselves great leaders encourage leadership development by openly developing themselves. Dr Marshall Goldsmith believes that one of the best ways top executives can get their leaders to improve is to work on improving themselves

- Dr Marshall Goldsmith

Listen to what General Mills CEO Steve Sanger recently told 90 of his colleagues: ‘As you all know, last year my team told me that I needed to do a better job of coaching my direct reports. I just reviewed my 360-degree feedback. I have been working on becoming a better coach for the past year or so. I’m still not doing quite as well as I want, but I’m getting a lot better. My co-workers have been helping me improve. Another thing that I feel good about is the fact that my scores on “effectively responds to feedback” are so high this year.’ While listening to Steve speak so openly to co-workers about his efforts to develop himself as a leader, I realised how much the world has changed. Twenty years ago, few CEOs received feedback from their colleagues. Even fewer candidly discussed that feedback and their personal developmental plans. Today, many of the world’s most respected chief executives are setting a positive example by opening up, striving continually to develop themselves as leaders. In fact, organisations that do the best job of cranking out leaders tend to have CEOs like Steve Sanger who are directly and actively involved in leadership development. That has certainly been my experience. This has also been confirmed by a recently completed research project led by Marc Effron at Hewitt Associates, one of the largest HR consulting firms. Hewitt and Chief Executive magazine put General Mills on their latest list of the to