Why Your Organization May Be Losing Ground While Standing Still
"The only thing worse than training employees and having them leave is not training them and having them stay." - Henry Ford
In education, there's a well-documented phenomenon called the "summer slide" - where students lose academic ground during extended breaks from learning. But there's a parallel phenomenon in organizations that receives far less attention: the Leaders Slide.
What is the Leaders Slide?
The Leaders Slide occurs when organizations take their attention off of developing their leaders, resulting in a gradual erosion of leadership capabilities across the organization. Just as students can't maintain academic progress without consistent practice, leaders can't maintain their effectiveness without ongoing development and growth opportunities.
Why It Happens
The Leaders Slide typically emerges during three scenarios:
Resource Constraints: During economic downturns or budget cuts, leadership development is often seen as a "nice to have" rather than essential.
Success Plateau: When organizations are performing well, there's a tendency to become complacent about developing leaders.
Operational Focus: In periods of intense operational demands, leadership development takes a back seat to immediate business needs.
The Hidden Cost
The impact of the Leaders Slide isn't immediately visible - that's what makes it dangerous. Like rust on a bridge, the deterioration happens slowly but steadily and only becomes apparent when a major failure occurs:
Emerging leaders plateau in their development
Executive blind spots go unchallenged
Innovation stagnates as creative thinking muscles atrophy
Cultural erosion begins as leadership habits slip
Engagement declines as growth opportunities diminish
Breaking the Slide
Here's how forward-thinking organizations maintain leadership momentum:
1. Make Development Non-Negotiable
Transform leadership development from an event into an operating system. Create regular touchpoints for learning and growth, even if they're brief. This might mean:
Monthly peer learning sessions
Quarterly leadership forums
Weekly micro-learning opportunities
2. Leverage Internal Wisdom
Create structures for leaders to learn from each other:
Cross-functional mentoring programs
Leadership story-sharing sessions
Problem-solving circles
3. Connect Development to Real Work
Instead of treating leadership development as separate from daily work:
Incorporate learning objectives into project assignments
Use actual business challenges as case studies
Create action learning teams to tackle strategic initiatives
4. Measure What Matters
Track leading indicators of leadership health:
Employee engagement scores
Employee retention
Financial results
Cultural survey results
The Path Forward
The Leaders Slide isn't inevitable. But preventing it requires intentional effort and sustained commitment. Just as world-class athletes never stop training, world-class organizations never stop developing their leaders.
Remember: While your organization is standing still, your competitors are moving forward. The choice isn't between sliding backward and staying the same - it's between sliding backward and moving ahead.
The question isn't whether you can afford to invest in developing your leaders. The question is: Can you afford not to?