Talent shortage at leadership level is reality, says Mercer|Mettl study

Many organisations are facing a talent shortage at the leadership level and as per a report by talent assessment firm Mercer|Mettl, around 80 percent of companies across the globe are facing this problem.

The report - Leadership Development Trends 2019 - said that while most organisations struggle to develop a team of effective leaders, those that do manage to create strong leadership face the risk of attrition. This, it said, is on account of the present leaders either being baby boomers (around 50 percent) on the verge of retiring or millennials who prefer to change jobs frequently.

When asked about the most prominent challenge with their leadership development process, 30 percent of organisations also highlighted the inability/reluctance of their senior management to recognise it as a critical business imperative.

Siddhartha Gupta, CEO, Mercer | Mettl India, said that 49 percent of organisations treat reskilling of their new and existing leaders as primary objective of their leadership development programmes.

When it comes to using leadership development programmes, about 31 percent of the respondents use leadership development to create a robust internal succession pipeline.

Further, around one-fifth (20 percent) use it to identify individuals with excellent leadership skills. Another 23 percent of organisations focus on enabling leaders to become key drivers of business growth.

The report also said that around 18 percent of organisations use it to enhance the interpersonal and behavioural skills of the participants, to help them to become more effective leaders.

However, a few challenges have been cited too. Nearly a quarter (22 percent) considered the high associated costs as a major issue. Another 42 percent of respondents revealed that they lack a sustainable leadership competency framework to build these programmes.