Everyone I work with these days wants to grow “global leaders” even if they can’t explain exactly what that means. Many companies today are looking overseas for new markets and new customers in order to sustain the profitable growth of their businesses.

New behaviours, skills and thinking are required to succeed globally and companies must act strategically to secure the talented people required to fulfil their increasingly global vision.

The war for top global talent

A 2001 study by McKinsey & Co showed that companies considered as having top talent delivered 22 per cent more ROI than those rated as having average employees. In addition, another study reported that 45 per cent of organisational performance is due to leadership. What’s more, population studies predict a shortage in the world’s working-age population over the coming decades, most dramatically in Germany and Japan.

Finally, a 2008 survey of global CEOs found that the #1 issue that these executives felt they would face in the coming 2-5 years was “staffing and skills”.

Clearly recruiting, retaining and developing talented people is one of the most important challenges facing global companies today. And yet when the current economic crisis began in 2008, an event I fondly refer to as “the worldwide economic mood disorder” or WWEMD for short, many large US companies immediately eliminated some or all of their leadership development programmes.

Keep in mind that many such programmes had already been eliminated during preceding decades of cost cutting. But now more than ever, sponsors of professional development programmes have a responsibility to assure that the precious money being invested in such employee development programmes is well spent and delivers an indisputable ROI.

The seven deadly sins

Unfortunately, predictable and avoidable pitfalls reduce the effectiveness of many global leadership development programmes. Chief among these are what I fondly refer to as “the seven deadly sins” of global leadership development programmes. I have observed these problems at close range during many years of facilitating programmes throughout the Silicon Valley and Japan.

A good portion of this list applies to practically every company that I’ve consulted with over the past 10 years, and these seven items form a highly effective checklist for anyone determined to extract the maximum benefit from their investment in global talent. Here are the seven deadly sins of global business leadership development programmes, each of which will be discussed in more detail in the following section:

1. Absence of visible senior executive support

2. No definition of an effective “global business leader”

3. Lack of clear goals, and no measurable success criteria

4. “Frankenstein” programmes, instead of an integrated approach

5. Insufficient participant preparation prior to the programme

6. Participant distractions during the programme

7. No support or accountability for delivering results, after the programme ends

Let’s explore each of these, and some of the underlying root causes, in greater detail. Senior Executive Support One of the most valuable aspects of a global leadership development programme is the opportunity to meet with senior executives, and learn first-hand from their leadership philosophies and experiences.

I worked with one Fortune 500 US firm that claimed to support employee development programmes, but month after month we failed to secure a senior executive to speak to the participants. While budgetary support for the programme is critical, personal involvement and active executive support sends a powerful message to participants about the importance of the programme and the significance of their selection for participation.

I always strive to assure that senior executives agree to invest the time required to be visible through “senior leader dialogues”, where they share their experiences in presentations and Q&A, informal social occasions, and by being present as the audience for status reports on the realworld challenging business projects that are a part of every effective global leadership development programme.

What is an effective “global business leader”?

Leaders have only three tools: Action, Communication and Thinking (ACT) and followers can only perceive the first two of those. There are terrific leadership models, research results and assessments, but I’ve found that there is no universally accepted definition of an effective global business leader’s ACTs.

Although some companies do have a clearly defined set of global leader core competencies, many have no idea what kind of global leader they are attempting to develop.

A lame definition like “someone who can lead globally” just won’t do. If development programs are to deliver the intended business results they must aim for specific changes in mindset, communication and actions that will be effective in the culture and environment in which the business operates.

Naturally, the absence of a clear definition of a global leader on the client’s part is no excuse for not having one ourselves when we purport to develop global leaders. In the absence of a definition, my team and I provide our own based on aggregated research on the topic, in the form of a Global Leadership Competence Instrument (GLCI), consisting of seven leadership characteristics in each of five key areas that can be used as a guide to the ideal global leader.

For maximum effect, each company should customise the definition of a global business leader to suit their particular business environments, and then programmes must be designed to develop and strengthen the observable behaviours associated with these characteristics in participants.

Goals and measurable success criteria

The undisputed #1 cause of failure to achieve goals is the lack of clear and measurable goals. Because human resource development has largely been considered a “soft” skill, hard metrics of progress are a foreign concept for some HR managers. However, in today’s demanding business environment, “What gets measured is what gets done” is true now more than ever. Only programmes that deliver measurable success will continue to enjoy continued funding. Although some people protest that global leadership development is too intangible to measure, we have found that there are several credible ways to track the value of such programs:

lf-assessment-self-assessment by the participants of their progress in closing the gap between their current leadership competence and what is required to be an effective global leader.

360 Assessment – 360 degree assessment by people who manager, report to or surround the participants in the work environment. In today’s boundaryless organisation, assessors may include suppliers, customers, alliance partners and collaborators of various kinds.

Hard measures of business results – tangible business results, such as increased revenue, reduced costs, increased quality, reduced turnover of employees, increased customer loyalty, reduced risk, increased profit and ultimately share price. Although it may be challenging to directly link these hard business metrics to global leadership development programmes, it can be done, especially if the programs include opportunities to apply what is learned to real business projects.

Albert Einstein said “Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.” But still, there is likely to be someone in your organization who rightly wants to know what they got for the money spent on global leadership development. We must quantify the value of these programs in order to get future programs funded.