Most leadership development conversation focuses on new and mid level managers. This makes sense because the foundational gap is often largest at those levels. But senior managers and experienced leaders also need ongoing development, and the kind of training they need is significantly different from foundational leadership training.
Senior managers who stopped actively developing their leadership capabilities years ago are often operating with skills that were appropriate for a different organizational context, a different business environment, and a different workforce. The expectations and challenges of senior leadership have changed substantially, and development needs to keep pace.
What Changes at the Senior Level
Senior managers face a specific set of leadership challenges that mid level managers do not encounter in the same way. They are responsible for the performance of entire functions rather than individual teams. They lead other leaders rather than individual contributors. Their decisions have longer time horizons and broader organizational impact. They need to communicate upward to boards and executives as effectively as they communicate downward to their teams.
Leadership essentials remain relevant at this level but need to be developed in their more sophisticated forms. Delegation at the senior level means delegating to leaders rather than to individual contributors, which requires a different approach and a different kind of oversight. Coaching at this level means developing management capability in others rather than developing individual job skills. Feedback at this level carries higher stakes and requires a more nuanced touch.
The Strategic Leadership Capabilities That Matter Most
At the senior manager level, several additional capabilities become particularly important. Organizational systems thinking, the ability to understand how different parts of the organization interact and how changes in one area affect others, becomes essential for making good decisions. Stakeholder management, the ability to build and maintain trust with a wide range of internal and external stakeholders, becomes a significant portion of the senior manager's role. Change leadership, the ability to guide large groups of people through significant organizational change without losing alignment or momentum, becomes a regular requirement.
Savia Learning's leadership development content, combined with their custom content capability, provides the scaffolding for senior leadership development programs that address these specific competency needs.
The Value of Peer Learning at the Senior Level
One of the most valuable elements of senior leadership development that generic training programs often miss is peer learning. Senior managers learn enormously from each other, from shared experiences, from different approaches to common challenges, and from the perspective of leaders operating in different functional contexts.
Structured opportunities for senior managers to learn from and with each other, facilitated by strong content and a skilled facilitator, often produce more development than the same amount of time spent in one directional training.
Keeping Senior Leaders Humble and Curious
One of the risks of senior leadership is the development of a false certainty that can inhibit learning. The most effective senior leaders maintain genuine curiosity about how they can improve and genuine openness to feedback, even as their experience and confidence grow. Building this quality requires development programs that challenge as well as affirm.
Conclusion
Senior managers who stopped actively developing their leadership capability years ago are a hidden organizational risk. The challenges they face have evolved, the workforce they lead has changed, and the organizational context has shifted. Ongoing leadership development at the senior level is not a luxury. It is a necessary investment in the capability of the people who have the most impact on organizational culture and performance.