Leadership Development is Essential, Especially When Budgets are Bad

by Stan Sinclair, Managing Member

As this post is written, the debate over the Federal Budget for 2011 and beyond continues to rage in the House and the Senate.  What is certain is that most Federal agencies, especially those dealing with domestic affairs, will be cut: the only question now, according to news reports, is the extent of those cuts.

I would not presume to tell any organization how those cuts should be allocated.  However, I suggest there is one area Federal agencies should protect as much as possible—leadership development programs.  Significant cuts in government agencies are nearly always accompanied by reductions-in-force, or RIF’s.  RIF’s have all kinds of consequences for agencies, but the bottom line is that when the process is completed fewer people will be available to do the same amount of work—or even more work.

This situation means that those employees surviving the RIF will have to take on the responsibilities of others.  Some will need to assume supervisory responsibilities for the first time: others will find that their span of control has increased, in some cases by a very large amount.  The employees they supervise will be traumatized by the loss of their friends, and in many cases, by the fear that they themselves will be the next to go.

Only strong leadership skills can improve the level of production and motivation among such employees, or even to enable them to continue to produce work at the levels they achieved before the RIF process began.  New supervisors, or supervisors who have had their responsibilities greatly expanded, are not born with the skills their new positions require; nor do many of them know how to properly execute organizational strategy, especially when the organization has had to change strategies due to budget cuts.  Only classroom training, hands-on exercises and, where possible, one-on-one coaching sessions with skilled coaches can give them the abilities they and the organizations they represent will need.

Leadership development, therefore, should not be considered a “frill” that can be dispensed with or downsized when compared to other programs that might be reduced or eliminated.  Instead, it must be thought of as an integral part of an agency’s survival strategy, helping to ensure that the cuts the agency receives will impact its customers as little as possible.  Agencies wishing to succeed in this new environment will need to invest, not cut back, in leadership training because of their diminished resources—not in spite of them.