“Chief Leadership Officer” - A First Of It’s Kind
Accenture announce today the appointment of a "Chief Leadership Officer"…
"Mr. Nanterme has primary responsibility for Accenture’s leadership development program, which focuses on building the leadership capabilities of Accenture’s more than 11,000 senior executives and senior managers globally. He is also responsible for the development of and succession planning for the company’s top 200 executives, considered to be Accenture’s next generation of leaders."
Will others now follow?
June 13th, 2006
4 Comments Add your own
1. vinnie mirchandani | June 13th, 2006 at 5:28 pm
is this really new…tech firms think they innovate but corporate America has often been doing so much, especially when it comes to global talent, ahead of them. In mid 80s I did work for Shell and back then they had a global database of fast track execs they mentored, monitored etc. Citibak has had an expat corp which moves from country to country and was treated differently and tracked across 2-3 year assignments etc…
2. Jason Corsello | June 13th, 2006 at 8:35 pm
Vinnie…i would agree many large multi-nationals have done some interesting things as it relates to leadership and training development. The challenge is…
1) Most of the programs are feast or famine, dependent on a healthy, growing business
2) Most have been focused on the development of the individual and less on the alignment/connection with the business
3) Many programs where buried in the learning process and sponsored in part because their the CEOs MBA buddy was an OD “expert” at BCG or Bain
This is at least the first time I have seen the fancy-pants title with a keen focus on impacting the business by planning for succession at the executive level.
3. Thomas Otter | June 14th, 2006 at 7:56 am
what is interesting about this is what is not said. The word HR is nowhere. This guy reports to the CEO, and has a line management background…
4. David Hatch | January 2nd, 2008 at 12:34 pm
I just recently discovered Jason’s blog so I’m a little late with my comments.
The creation of a title like Chief Leadership Officer, on the face of it seems innovative, and indicative of a commitment to developing leadership. It at least attracts attention to an increasingly important issue in businesses across the globe.
This case is significant for reasons that at first glance might not be apparent. My experience is that line managers usually don’t make good staff heads, especially in areas where millions are unwisely spent on solutions that make no sense, but have lots of “visibility”. Reporting to the CEO is also is often just for show, and can be meaningless, especially if the CEO doesn’t know how to develop leadership either– resulting in the blind leading the blind.
But, the key thing here that may have real value my view– and is often overlooked, is the combination of leadership development with succession planning.
Given the global and often transformational nature of today’s leadership responsibilities, the development of leadership in most companies is inextricably tied to job and project assignment.
All successful development models today have varying degrees of action learning models built into them. Those with hefty learning experience are the most valuable, because in a fast moving environment, getting an gram of on the ground experience is often worth a kilo of “perspective” gained in the classroom.
Nothing accelerates learning like the right kinds of experiences. Those experiences accelerate value added learning better than anything else.
How does that relate to stodgy old succession planning? Well, if it is the old replacement planning type of succession with “beer truck scenarios” the answer is not much.
But succession includes career and experience management tools that ensure they get the experiences they need for current and future challenges, then it is the best partner a Chief Leadership Officer can have!
Now, rather than just figuring where to spend money, and which celebrity guru can fit into your program’s schedules, you can do some real good, by making sure the right assignments are going to the right people, that key roles are staffed using development as well as performance criteria.
Does anyone know what has happened at Accenture in the last 6 months?
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