Yearly Archives: 2024

Just like star athletes often struggle to transition to the role of “coach,” a star sales rep can struggle to succeed as a sales manager. As a manager, your success no longer hinges on personal performance. Instead, it hinges on your ability to create a thriving team. At the same time, your responsibilities increase.

“Why would I want to measure my emerging leader program? It might show we aren’t making a difference!” That was the very real response I got many years ago from the VP of L&D at Novartis when I asked her about her measurement strategy.

Since Chat GPT burst onto the scene in late 2022, leadership development has seen an explosion of new technology. That said, most leadership development professionals still aren’t adopting it. In the 2024 LEADx Leadership Development Benchmark Report, we found that just 24% of leadership development professionals currently use AI in their work. 

Sales leaders are the lever for a high-performing sales organization. One study cited in the Harvard Business Review found that 69% of sales reps who exceeded quota rated their managers highly.

Let’s start with a real story of how not to choose participants for your emerging leader program. This pharmaceutical company had such a bad selection process that you can use it as a map of the mistakes you should avoid. 

Emotional intelligence (EQ) is difficult to train. As Annie McKee writes for the Harvard Business Review, “EQ is difficult to develop because it is linked to psychological development and neurological pathways created over an entire lifetime. It takes a lot of effort to change long-standing habits of human interaction.”

The 2024 LinkedIn Learning Report just came out. The 36-page report is based on a survey of 1,636 L&D and HR professionals.

The Learning & Development (L&D) field, since its inception, has found itself pigeonholed into a reactive, order-taking role. Dating as far back as the Industrial Revolution and the First World War, organizational L&D functions began to close the skill gaps determined by managers in the manufacturing industry.

Leader and manager development is the number one priority for human resource (HR) leaders for next year, according to the Gartner Top 5 HR Trends and Priorities for 2024 report, based on a survey of 520 HR leaders. According to Mark Whittle, vice president of advisory in the Gartner HR practice, “In 2024, the HR function will be impacted by several key trends: an unsettled employee-employer relationship, persistent skills shortage, transformative technology innovations and pressure to achieve operational efficiencies.”