Today's Wall Street Journal

Today's Wall Street Journal includes an article describing the increasing emphasis on leadership and interpersonal skills in career management programs. Is this trend consistent with the development requests made by the executives in your company?

November 18, 2005Careers-->
Careers
Firms look to manage talent
As job market improves, companies step upefforts in leadership development
By ANDREA CHIPMAN DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
Corporate hiring is rebounding once again, and with it a new focus on "talent management," as many companies world-wide form partnerships with top business schools to attract and retain skilled managers.
Leadership-development programs have been growing in popularity for years. But companies are increasingly looking at a more intensive and comprehensive approach to career development -- and starting the process earlier. The programs are emphasizing more generally applicable leadership and interpersonal skills and, in some cases, targeting employees at the beginning of their careers.
And as globalization strengthens the rivalry between companies to attract and retain talented managers, people aspiring to senior management positions find they need to broaden their skills and outlooks.
"The issue around globalization is that things become that much more complex, so you need to develop your people that much more," says Guy Saunders, director of open-enrollment programs at London Business School.
These factors are boosting enrollment in both open programs, which serve the broader needs of executives, and customized executive-education courses, which are tailored to the needs of specific companies.
At the International Institute for Management Development in Lausanne, Switzerland, the Program for Executive Development, designed for executives who can't take time out for an executive master's degree in business administration, now runs four times a year and is fully subscribed, says IMD President and Chief Executive Peter Lorange. The school also recently introduced two one-week courses in leadership.
INSEAD in France has introduced programs for women leaders and coaching for leadership in the last 15 months, says Soumitra Dutta, dean of executive education. London Business School this year is introducing a program dedicated to helping executives develop successful business strategies.
Several schools are also forming or strengthening partnerships with corporate clients to provide specially designed training. For example, IMD works with food and beverage company Nestlé SA to design programs for the Swiss company's training center.
About 1,500 to 1,600 managers annually take courses at Nestlé's residential training center. Nestlé also sends 80 to 90 managers a year to open-enrollment programs at IMD and other schools, with the most popular being IMD's program for executive development, says Francisco Castañer, executive vice president for human resources at Nestlé.
"We've trained them in the Nestlé way of doing things and we think that exposing them to other countries and other ways of doing things is worthwhile," he says.
Warwick Business School in Warwick, England, is working with the British arm of German utility giant E.ON AG to train a new generation of managers. "This program is about creating a different kind of culture, and getting together with managers to create a common idea of what leadership is all about," says Jarri Sandstrom, human-resources director for E.ON U.K.
With many managers already holding M.B.A. degrees and most familiar with basic business concepts, courses are increasingly emphasizing topics such as group dynamics that the companies say are crucial to the development of corporate leaders.
"Leadership education is looking at the softer side of management and self-evaluation," says INSEAD's Mr. Dutta. "Who you are affects how you manage other people."