Global Leadership Forecast 2018

25 Research Insights to
Fuel Your People Strategy
SingaporeGlobal Leadership Forecast 2018

Actionable Intelligence for Leadership Imperatives
Global Leadership Forecast 2018—a three-way collaboration with Development Dimensions International (DDI), The
Conference Board, and EY—is the eighth Forecast since DDI began the stream of research in 1999. It’s also one of themost expansive leadership research projects ever conducted. This report summarizes dozens of practical, evidencebased recommendations for critical business issues. These range from digital transformation to gender and generational
diversity to the roles of purpose and culture in building an effective, sustainable leadership strategy for a digital age.
This research integrates data from 25,812 leaders and 2,547 HR professionals across 2,488 organizations across the globe.
Not only are these perspectives numerous, but they are also diverse and highly representative of the business context
facing global enterprises. The research, which spans more than 1,000 C-level executives and 10,000 high-potential
employees, includes 54 countries and 26 major industry sectors. Our full set of leader demographics is depicted below.

© Development Dimensions International, Inc., The Conference
Board Inc., EYGM Limited, 2018. All rights reserved.

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Global Leadership Forecast 2018

GLF Insights for Singapore
As part of the larger Global Leadership Forecast 2018 study, this report highlights findings on the current state ofleadership and leadership practices in Singapore. Based on survey responses from 145 leaders and 31 HR professionals,
these results provide actionable insights specifically for Singapore’s leadership context and business market.
Throughout this report, findings are presented for both Singapore as well as the global sample of leaders. Where theglobal results are presented, they will be accompanied by the global icon [] to indicate findings are based on the

global sample of leaders or HR professionals. Unless accompanied by the global icon or otherwise noted, findings
throughout this report can assumed to be specific to Singapore.
Not all findings from the Global Leadership Forecast 2018 are specific to Singapore and provided in this report. As such,please refer to the global report for the full set of actionable insights. The global report can also be used as acomparative benchmark for Singapore-specific findings presented in this report. We are confident these results will
provide new insights for Singapore’s leadership practices and hope the report will stimulate your own ideas about how
to enhance your organization’s leadership capabilities.

© Development Dimensions International, Inc., The Conference
Board Inc., EYGM Limited, 2018. All rights reserved.

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Global Leadership Forecast 2018

A Research-Driven Road Map for Leadership Acceleration
Singapore insights from the Global Leadership Forecast 2018 center on 25 findings (listed in the Table of Contents on thefacing page) about the state, context, and future of leadership. The findings are clustered into six categories:
1.

Leaders at the Core—leadership and talent are top agenda items for CEOs, and the readiness gaps continue to besignificant.

2.

Digital & Data—how digital and data-rich business contexts accelerate the need to build the right capabilities tothrive.

3.

Growth & Potential—proven practices for aggressively developing leader talent and bench through a robust
learning and growth engine.

4.

Leader Diversity—understanding and advancing gender and generational diversity in leaders to achieve thediversity dividend.

5.

Cultural Drivers—the powerful forces that can propel—or if lacking, will cripple—rapid, disruptive change.

6.

The HR Opportunity—how HR can elevate and extend its influence on business outcomes to deliver on this strategic
agenda.

Each of the 25 findings shares a common format: We describe the context for the business issue, visualize the key data,
describe the key leadership implications, and provide specific guidance for converting research evidence torecommended actions of two types:
First, “Where to Start,” practical steps that organizations can take now to build, reinforce, or remedy theirfoundation for evidence-based leadership practices and systems, drawing on notable outcomes from theresearch. Typically, these are actions that many—but far from most—organizations have in place, but that areoften overlooked as key building blocks on which more advanced elements of leadership strategy rely. That is, though
they’re often common sense, they’re rarely common practice.
Second, “How to Excel + Differentiate.” The research’s wide-reaching scope includes hundreds of organizations
that are prototypes for rapid advancement toward one or more challenging leadership and businessobjectives: digital transformation, gender diversity, high-potential management, people analytics, and instillinga sense of purpose, among many others. This section of each finding shows how organizations can draw onproven, high-impact leadership practices to gain a sustained competitive advantage by harnessing their leaders’potential at all levels and from all backgrounds.

After the 25 findings, which are designed to be modular and self-contained so that they can be used
individually, we close Global Leadership Forecast 2018 with two integrative summaries:•

First, an integrated view of six leadership megatrends—core, overarching themes that we found emerging again
and again across the findings—that collectively chart a course for the trajectory of leadership and serve as broad
guiding principles for leadership-directed action.

•

Second, a leadership practices scoreboard showing the “in-place” frequency of 34 leadership practices in
Singapore and the links from each to three critical outcomes: Leadership Program Quality (in the eyes of theleaders/learners who are the “customers” for these programs), Leadership Bench Strength (supply of ready-now
leaders to fill critical roles over the next three years), and Financial Outcomes (an externally gathered composite ofoperating margin, EBITDA, revenue growth, and return on equity).

© Development Dimensions International, Inc., The Conference
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Global Leadership Forecast 2018

Table of Contents> Leaders at the CoreFor CEOs, It’s Still About Developing Leaders: Strategy Is Nothing Without Effective Leaders to Execute................................ 4
Leader Capability Stalled Again: It’s Time to Close the Gaps .......................................................................................................... 6
Leadership Strategy: The Forgotten Foundation of Business Planning ............................................................................................. 8
Purpose-Driven Leadership: Inspiring and Leading in a Complex Environment .......................................................................... 10> Digital & Data
Digital-Era Leadership: Ready or Not, Digital Competence Is Already Differentiating Winners from Losers .......................... 12
Accelerating the Digital Journey: Changing Old Leadership Mindsets and Ways of Working ................................................. 14
Leading with Data-Driven Decisions: The Culture and Skills Driving Higher Returns on Data ..................................................... 16
Why Technology Leaders Are Failing: The High Cost of Low-Chance Development ................................................................. 18> Growth & Potential
Rethinking Leadership Potential: Why Broader Is Better ................................................................................................................... 20
Meeting the Needs of the Modern Learner: Technology Gains Its Footing, but It’s a Slippery Slope ...................................... 22
Making the Most of High-Potential Talent: Avoiding a Mismatch Between What They Want and Get .................................. 24
Performance Management: Are Ratings Overrated for Growing Leaders? ................................................................................ 26
Want to Be a Leader? Get an Early Start ............................................................................................................................................ 28> Leader Diversity
The Rise of the Digital Natives: Are Millennials Ready to Lead? ...................................................................................................... 30
Generation X-Change: Don’t Underestimate the Powerful Influence of Gen X Leaders .......................................................... 32
Diversity Leaders: How Top Organizations Are Growing Strong with Women in Leadership ..................................................... 34> Cultural Drivers
Build a Coaching Culture: Want to Be a Better Leader? Ask a Peer or Employee ..................................................................... 36
Mentoring for Impact: How to Maximize a Critical Leadership Experience ................................................................................. 38
Collective Leadership: Leading for Value Across Organizational Boundaries ............................................................................. 40
It’s Time for Teams in Leadership: The Power of a Shared Leader Perspective ............................................................................ 42
Adjusted for Disruption: Top Drivers of Organizational Success through Complexity and Change ......................................... 44
No Engaged Workforce Without Engaged Leaders: To Raise Leader Engagement, We Need to Raise Up Leaders .......... 46> The HR Opportunity
HR’s New Role: Are They Up to the Challenge?

.......................................................................................................................... 48

HR Under Pressure: Falling Behind in the Race to Transform ............................................................................................................ 50
People Analytics: Reversal of Fortunes ................................................................................................................................................ 52
Leadership Megatrends and Payoffs ................................................................................................................................................... 54© Development Dimensions International, Inc., The Conference
Board Inc., EYGM Limited, 2018. All rights reserved.

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Global Leadership Forecast 2018

For CEOs, It’s Still About
Developing Leaders
Strategy Is Nothing Without
Effective Leaders to ExecuteMore than 1,000 C-level executives, worldwide, identified the issues they expect to command their attention in the
coming year. Of the 28 challenges from which they could choose, their biggest concerns weren’t headline-worthy global
issues like political instability, climate change, terrorism, or a global recession. Rather, the top challenges vying forleaders’ action focused on their own leaders. Developing “Next Gen” leaders and failure to attract/retain top talent wererated in the top five by 64 percent and 60 percent of global respondents, respectively. In Singapore, developing “Next
Gen” leaders and failure to attract/regain top talent were rated as key challenges by 64 percent and 60 percent,respectively. Leaders clearly indicated that top talent and effective leaders will be needed to address the myriad current
challenges and to position their organization for future success. The global Top 10 Challenges are shown below.

Top 10 Challenges Identified by Global Executives© Development Dimensions International, Inc., The Conference
Board Inc., EYGM Limited, 2018. All rights reserved.

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Global Leadership Forecast 2018

These findings are consistent with The Conference Board’s 2017 CEO Challenge* study, which asks the same question of
global CEOs each year. In 2016 and 2017, these two challenges placed among the top five choices globally. Senior leaders
are acutely aware of the importance of focusing on strengthening human—and, specifically, leadership—capital.
Of those Singapore leaders surveyed in Global Leadership Forecast 2018, only 27 percent believe their organization’s
leadership development program to be of high or very high quality, with 21 percent rating “leadership assessment” and24 percent rating “leadership performance management programs” to be of high or very high quality. Average program
quality translates into moderate confidence in leadership effectiveness. When asked to consider their own effectivenessin the critical leadership skill of identifying and developing future talent, 60 percent of respondents rated themselves
highly effective or very highly effective, which leaves 40 percent of leaders (those who are only moderately effective, oreven less skilled) to shape the next generation. And with 54 percent never having been mentored, how do we expect thatthey’ll know how to mentor others?

HR Paints a Bleak Picture
More than 2,500 HR professionals across the globe told us that identifying and developing future talent is the mostcritical skill leaders will need in three years. In Singapore, identifying and developing future talent was ranked as thenumber 1 skill leaders will need in the next three years. A significant gap exists between the criticality of this leadershipskill and leaders’ own assessment of their ability to successfully master it. The net result would be a weakened leadershipcadre. Only 23 percent of Singapore HR professionals rated their organization’s bench strength—the supply to fill criticalleadership positions over the next three years—at any level of strength (slightly strong, strong, or very strong) and, on
average, only 43 percent of positions could be filled by an internal candidate immediately. Twenty-Eight percent believe
their succession management system and processes to be of low or very low effectiveness.
In terms of quality, HR professionals’ assessments of their organization’s leadership development program were lower
than the leaders’. Responses do not signal a bright future:• Twenty-four percent have a weak or nonexistent relationship between annual strategic plans and their own plans togrow leadership talent.
• Twenty-nine percent do not have well-integrated and strategically aligned leadership development programs orprocesses.
• Ninety-six percent see their leadership career planning/pathing systems as only moderately effective or worse.
• Seventy-one percent do not believe their leaders have high-quality, effective development plans.
• Forty-one percent do not use information from assessments and simulations to make leadership hiring andpromotion decisions.
• Twenty-three percent do not have a program to develop high potentials, and 30 percent of those that do, don’t
measure the effectiveness of the programs.
• Seventy-one percent do not exercise negative consequences when leaders fail to develop leaders on their team.
• Twenty-three percent do not know the up-to-date status of leadership talent capability across the organization.
* Mitchell, C., Ray, R.L., & van Ark, B. (2017, January), The Conference Board CEO Challenge® 2017: Leading Through Risk, Disruption andTransformation, New York, The Conference Board, https://www.conference-board.org

HOW TO EXCEL + DIFFERENTIATE

WHERE TO START••

With all stakeholders, begin with a candid assessment of••Create a plan to integrate all efforts with the twin goals of
supporting leaders’ success now and building a solid
pipeline of successful future leaders against the profile
your organization will need.

•

Create or update a leadership capability model that is••Partner with business leaders and the C-Suite to design,deliver, and assess the effectiveness of all leadershiprelated actions. Enlist these individuals as coaches,
mentors, and champions.

Ensure that leaders have the skills to identify and develop
Review and enhance other talent management systems
to support the creation of a strong cadre of leaders.

© Development Dimensions International, Inc., The Conference
Board Inc., EYGM Limited, 2018. All rights reserved.

Deepen the strength and quality of your leadership
bench.

top talent.
•

Articulate the impact in terms of the organization’s ability
to execute the strategy and create a plan to address
deficiencies.

embraced by senior leadership and aligned with theorganization’s strategic goals.
•

Systematically monitor progress and gather data to
determine the business impact leadership development
processes have on advancing the organization’s
strategic goals.

all leadership development programs and processes at
all leader levels.

•

5

Adapt performance management processes to holdleaders accountable for successfully developing theirteams, particularly emerging leaders.

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Global Leadership Forecast 2018

Leader Capability
Stalled Again
It’s Time to Close the Gaps“Everything is different from today on.” So, supposedly, said Austrian composer Joseph Haydn after hearing Beethoven’s
Symphony Number 3, the Eroica, more than two centuries ago. While many who first heard it were shocked, it changed
the very essence of classical music and went on to be one of the world’s most beloved symphonies. The quote aptly
reflects today’s leadership landscape. Never in the nearly 20 years we’ve been collecting data for the Global Leadership
Forecast have we seen the array of forces that are disrupting the essence of great leadership. “Competitive pressure to
innovate and shake up established markets is too powerful for companies and the people who lead them to ignore.”*And, never has the quality of our leaders to guide us into uncertain futures been more critical.
> Singapore Leadership Quality: Little Progress Six Years Running© Development Dimensions International, Inc., The Conference
Board Inc., EYGM Limited, 2018. All rights reserved.

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Global Leadership Forecast 2018

Leaders Ready for Today? And What
About Tomorrow?
We’ve followed perceptions of leadership capability
over the years that indicate organizations’ progress inbuilding stronger leadership capability. Are they
improving? Despite billions spent on leadershipdevelopment annually, the answer, yet again, is no!
As shown in the figure at left, little has improved inoverall organizational leadership quality as rated by
145 Singapore leaders. The percentage in the
excellent/very good categories has been decreasingfrom 39 percent since 2011. And when HR evaluates thequality of their organization’s leaders, the number
remains constant from the previous report at 14
percent. Overall quality varies widely by country,
industry, and level. Leaders, for example, rated senior leadership quality considerably higher than the quality of those in
first-level positions (41 versus 26 percent). While first-level leaders are less experienced in a leadership role, they’re likely
to have the most profound impact on their teams’ engagement and productivity.
We also took a forward view by asking HR to rate the strength of their current pipeline to meet their business needs overthe next three years. The results are equally discouraging. Just 22 percent considered their future bench to be verystrong/strong in Global Leadership Forecast 2011. That number dropped to 7 percent in this survey. A full 77 percent of
HR respondents rate their future leadership bench as slightly weak or worse. Again, these ratings vary considerably byindustry.
The figure to the right lists some key countries/regions and industries in terms of leadership quality and theaccompanying rating of future bench strength. One thing is very clear: The current quality of leadership earned higher
marks than bench strength three years out. Given the seismic disruption in almost every industry, keeping ahead of theleader quality and quantity supply chain will be a considerable challenge.
Dearth of current quality and projected future bench strength can hinder your organization’s ability to fill critical
positions with ready-now internal leaders. On average, Singapore respondents feel they can fill only 43 percent of theircritical roles with strong internal leaders, leaving them to search outside for often-costlier, higher-risk external
candidates.
At the end of the day, we need to ask ourselves if these numbers have any real impact. It turns out that, globally,
companies in the top third of financial performers are twice as likely to have high-quality leaders than those in thebottom third. This is a difference that can easily translate into millions of dollars for any single company.
* Hoque, F. (2015, November), 5 Habits of Truly Disruptive Leaders, Fast Company. https://www.fastcompany.com/3052725/5-habits-of-trulydisruptive-leaders

WHERE TO START••HOW TO EXCEL + DIFFERENTIATE

Analyze the strengths and gaps in your leadership bench•against your business goals. This will enable you to bettertarget your limited resources while having the greatest
impact on your business.

•

plan.

Keep your eye on disruptions to your business and how•

Become a champion at using predictive analytics to
improve the quality of hiring and promotion decisions.

© Development Dimensions International, Inc., The Conference
Board Inc., EYGM Limited, 2018. All rights reserved.

Integration of talent systems is key. For example, superior
development will not compensate for poor hiring systems.

they affect your success profiles. The requirements forleadership excellence are changing constantly.
•

Consider a more systematic approach to developing along-term leadership strategy connected to your business7

A majority of organizations still do a poor job of measuring
the impact of their leadership development efforts.
Improvements will never come unless you know what aworthwhile investment is and is not!

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Global Leadership Forecast 2018

Leadership Strategy
The Forgotten Foundation of Business Planning
Only 7 Percent of Singapore CEOs Have the Leadership Talent to Execute Their Strategy
The data in Global Leadership Forecast 2018 shows that organizations with effective leadership talent outperform theirpeers. Yet very few organizations manage this high-value asset in an integrated, cohesive way. Even after spending morethan $50 billion annually* on developing their leaders, many companies still don’t have the bench strength to meet their
future business goals. And despite the spending, investments are often fragmented and see a lack of returns. Leadershipmodels and development programs abound; few tie to business goals. Worse yet, there’s scant evidence that they
actually work. What’s needed is a coherent, integrated leadership strategy. A well-crafted blueprint ensures thatcompanies have the right talent, at the right cost, and with the right capabilities to deliver today and into the future. Yet,
we found only 32 percent of HR professionals in Singapore feel their organizations have an effective leadership strategy.
Companies that do have such strategies in place report better returns on their investment in talent. They consistently
feature deeper leader bench strength and stronger leaders at all levels.

> Global Preparedness to Meet Key Business Challenges with an Effective and Ineffective Leadership Strategy© Development Dimensions International, Inc., The Conference
Board Inc., EYGM Limited, 2018. All rights reserved.

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Global Leadership Forecast 2018

What Differentiates Organizations with Effective Leadership Strategies?
The advantages of having a leadership strategy in place are enormous, beginning with leader preparedness to meetbusiness challenges. The graphic at the far left shows the leader-readiness advantages of an effective leadership strategy.

So, What’s in an Effective Leadership Strategy?
Senior line managers define “leadership strategy” as having a supply of capable leaders to meet both their short- and(ever-changing) long-term business needs. A sound leadership strategy consists of the four elements defined below.
Using the global sample, we looked at the effectiveness ratings for each element, comparing organizations that reporthaving a leadership strategy in place with those that do not.
• Defines the competencies required for success. We see a much higher level of effectiveness of this basic
practice in organizations with a leadership strategy versus those with no strategy (82 percent versus 49 percent).
• Models supply and demand as part of the strategic planning process. Organizations with an effective
leadership strategy are 4.3 times more likely to adeptly forecast future leadership demand than those without.
• Ensures that all core leadership processes align and are consistently reinforcing the appropriate
skills/capabilities/mindsets. All major talent systems are more effective in organizations with stronger
leadership strategies. For example, when there is a leadership strategy in place, 70 percent of organizations reporthaving effective development programs in place versus 27 percent in those organizations with no strategy. The
same magnitude of difference applies to succession management (51 percent versus 15 percent). These systems
comprise the foundation for delivering a steady flow of leaders through the pipeline.
• Measures the impact of leadership spending on performance and potential. Companies with effective
leadership strategies are 4 times more likely to gather business-impact measures on their talent initiatives.

What Are the Performance Benefits?
We found that an investment in formulating and executing an effective leadership strategy can have a significant impact
in several other areas:• Working with the business to articulate a leadership strategy improves HR’s strategic impact. Organizations
with a leadership strategy are 2 times more likely to rate their HR teams as strategic advisors.
• Of organizations with effective strategies, 56 percent have overall high leadership quality versus 20 percent with
less-effective strategies.
• Future bench strength, a critical lead outcome measure, is much stronger with an effective strategy (32 percent
versus a dismal 5 percent).
• Stronger ability to fill critical open positions with internal candidates (56 percent versus 38 percent). The cost ofeven a few senior positions remaining open far exceeds the investment required to put a sound strategy in place.

Should HR Be Involved in Strategic Planning?
Leadership strategy should never stand alone from an organization’s strategic plans, yet only 19 percent of local HR
professionals are involved in strategic planning from its inception. This diminishes the role they can, and should, play inconnecting the business to required leadership capability.
* Kellerman, B. (2012), The End of Leadership, New York, HarperCollins.

WHERE TO START•••HOW TO EXCEL + DIFFERENTIATE

Translate your strategic plans into leadership and talent
implications. Assess risks and areas where poor leadership•capability will impede execution.
Focus on execution. Like any other strategy, leadership•strategy often fails more due to lack of execution thanintegrity. Make sure to align all components of successful
execution: rewards, metrics, resources, and skills.
Look carefully at deploying initiatives across theenterprise. Ensure the most efficient and effective•

deployment of your limited resources.

© Development Dimensions International, Inc., The Conference
Board Inc., EYGM Limited, 2018. All rights reserved.

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Use robust predictive analytics to pinpoint the likely gaps
in your leadership supply chain. This will help you focus
your efforts.
Orchestrate all components of your leadership strategy.
They do not stand alone. Forecasting demand is worthless
without accompanying initiatives to close the gaps.
Prove the return on your leadership investment. Unlike
every other function, HR typically fails to seriously evaluate(and thus justify) the impact of their spend onorganizational performance.

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Global Leadership Forecast 2018

Purpose-Driven Leadership
Inspiring and Leading in a Complex Environment
Purpose is an aspirational reason for being that inspires and provides a call to action for an organization, its partners,
stakeholders, and society as a whole. EY Beacon Institute research* has consistently shown that purpose enables
organizations to perform well in times of volatility. The research joins a growing body of evidence demonstrating that astrong and active purpose raises employee engagement and acts as a unifier, makes customers more loyal andcommitted to working with you, and helps to frame effective decision making in an environment of uncertainty. Global
Leadership Forecast 2018 finds that getting purpose right builds organizational resilience and, crucially, improves longterm financial performance as seen in the figure below. We found that the real benefits come when leaders walk thewalk by behaving in a manner that exemplifies their organization’s purpose.

> Impact of Purpose on Financial Performance© Development Dimensions International, Inc., The Conference
Board Inc., EYGM Limited, 2018. All rights reserved.

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Global Leadership Forecast 2018

Why Make Purpose Your Guide?
Of 1,500 global C-Suite executives surveyed, 84 percent say their business operates in an increasingly disrupted
environment. In this world, purpose is a North Star—a fixed point to help navigate through change and uncertainty.
To understand the impact of purpose, we identified three types of organizations:• Those without a purpose.
• Those with a purpose statement.
• Purposeful organizations where leaders bring the stated purpose to life through behaviors.
We found clear evidence that companies in this third category are earning a significant performance premium.

Why Isn’t Just Having a Purpose Statement Enough?
Companies with only a purpose statement realize considerable performance improvements across many outcome
measures. However, we discovered that purposeful organizations (those with active leadership support) get evenstronger financial performance in the short and long term—and are better equipped to deal with the fast-changing,competitive environment.

More Benefits of Being a Purposeful Organization
The advantages to being purposeful are many:• Engagement. Purpose is a key driver of employee engagement. In previous research*, 96 percent of leaders,worldwide, said that purpose is important to their job satisfaction. In Global Leadership Forecast 2018, we foundthat having a purpose statement not only has a positive effect on engagement overall, but 25 percent more leaders
get meaning from work and energy levels are 60 percent higher compared to those without a purpose statement.
• This effect is amplified in purposeful organizations, where engagement levels are 12 percent higher and employees’
intent to stay is 14 percent higher.
• Culture. Companies with a purpose statement boast a stronger culture of collectiveness than those without, andthe effect is 35 percent greater in purposeful organizations, which also report 27 percent greater levels of
psychological safety. The culture is savvy but not fearful; optimistic without being naïve. Radical candor thrives,and people across the enterprise can robustly tackle pressing issues.
• Agility. Having employee and stakeholder buy-in enables a purposeful organization to respond more quickly andeffectively when opportunities arise or danger threatens (50 percent higher than non-purposeful organizations).
• Resilience. Purposeful companies enjoy higher levels of trust and loyalty, making them more resilient when thegoing gets tough. They’re also better able to retain customers, employees, and shareholders during the oftenpainful transition periods that comprise the new 21st century normal.
• Vision. Serving all stakeholders and aspiring to improve society enables a broader vision—a bigger game to play—
making organizations more likely to spot unexpected opportunities and new risks.
• Learning environment. While many companies understand that having a stated purpose is important, theystruggle to weave it into day-to-day business. We found that purposeful organizations build leaders’ skills in
inspiring, adapting, and team leadership. They do this by focusing on experiences, coaching, and mentoring.
Leaders learn from leaders, and they coach and develop their people.
* EY Beacon Institute. (2017), How Can Purpose Reveal a Path Through Disruption?, London.

WHERE TO START•••HOW TO EXCEL + DIFFERENTIATE

Articulate a clear purpose for your organization. Focus on•answering the why questions. We all know what ourorganizations do. Purpose is about asking why we exist in
the first place, what our employees and stakeholders
care about, and what resonates with customers.
Use purpose as a lens for everything you do. Let purpose
guide the solutions you offer, how you treat yourcustomers, and how you engage your workforce.
Communicate success stories to all constituents. Stories
perpetuate purpose. Each time people repeat them,
purpose entwines more closely with day-to-day business.

© Development Dimensions International, Inc., The Conference
Board Inc., EYGM Limited, 2018. All rights reserved.

•

•

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Integrate purpose into the company’s DNA. Reinforce
purpose through the day-to-day customer and employee
experience. Treat purpose as a commitment tostakeholders and publicly update on its progress.
Focus on leaders. Help them develop their own “why.”Work with all leaders to articulate their own purpose as it
relates to the overarching purpose for the business. Then,
help them do the same for their teams and employees.
Develop key skills. Purpose-driven leaders form teams,
inspire, and motivate in a fast-changing world. Theydevelop psychological safety and agility.

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Global Leadership Forecast 2018

Digital-Era Leadership
Ready or Not, Digital Competence Is AlreadyDifferentiating Winners from Losers
The work world continues its metamorphosis as organizations increasingly leverage technology to modernize theirbusiness strategies. As the pace of change intensifies, many companies just cannot compete; 50 percent of the 2006
Fortune 500 companies no longer exist. Competition rains in from every direction. Looking ahead, technologies such as
robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) are projected to affect two billion jobs over the next decade.* These trends
represent both a threat and an opportunity. Organizations with digitally savvy leaders, the pioneers, are outperforming
those organizations with less digitally capable leaders, the laggards. As our work world becomes increasingly digital, that
performance gap will only grow.

How Digital-Ready Are Leaders?
Global Leadership Forecast 2018 shows digital-era leaders focus their attention across five clusters made up of 16
competencies (see figure below). Averaging across all competencies, only 15 percent of leaders in Singapore consideredthemselves effective in all five areas.
The right column of the figure shows leaders’ ratings of their own effectiveness. They’ve reported relative strengths in
traditional leadership skills. However, the differentiators (digital capabilities and seeking out opportunities acrosscomplex ecosystems) are where leaders have gaps.
> Traditional Leadership Competencies vs. a New Set of Critical Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities© Development Dimensions International, Inc., The Conference
Board Inc., EYGM Limited, 2018. All rights reserved.

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Global Leadership Forecast 2018

Where Should You Focus?

> The digital leadership performance premiumNot every competency has the same impact on anorganization’s digital performance. The middle column of the
figure at left shows the six competencies that were found tohave the greatest impact on performance. Of these six mostcritical skills, leaders are relatively strong in three areas,
weaker in three.

Those organizations with the strongest digital leadership capabilities (the pioneers)
are outperforming those with the weakest capabilities (the laggards)• Lead with digitization. Organizations need leaders
who understand the impact digital tech can have on
their businesses. They sense what is and isn’t possible
and, more important, sense what will be possible. Theylook to standardize and automate processes to generate
new insights they can leverage for differentiatedcapabilities. This is a relatively weak area for leaders.
• Adaptability is a must. Digital leaders must be able toadapt to constant change or fall behind. They need to be learning every day, not getting caught up in “traditions.”
This is a relative leadership strength.
• Execution. It’s one thing to anticipate change. But it takes another set of skills altogether to turn new ideas into
reality. This also is a strength.
• Hyper-collaboration is about working relentlessly to break down silos. It’s getting people working together tosolve customers’ and the organization’s issues. Again, this is an identified weakness among Singapore leaders.
• Identify and develop new talent. Leaders need to spot and rapidly bring on board the digitally savvy talent of
tomorrow. Leaders do relatively well in this area.
• A 360 view. Leaders must be able to spot patterns and bring thinking together from multiple perspectives. This is areal weakness.

What Does This Mean for Performance and Potential?
Across the global sample, we found that the pioneers, digitally savvy leaders, are more prepared than the laggards tomeet emerging business challenges. Most notably, they’re better at anticipating and responding to the competitiveenvironment, navigating through complexity, and using data and analytics to guide their decision making.
In the figure above, we also demonstrated a significant relationship between global leaders’ digital readiness and theirorganization’s financial performance. Looking to the near future, every organization will need to embrace newtechnologies if they are to flourish. And, those with the most capable digital-ready leaders will continue to stay ahead of
the curve. In another section titled “Accelerating the Digital Journey,” we focus on how to ramp up organizational andleadership digital capability.
* Frey, T. (2012, February), 2 Billion Jobs to Disappear by 2030, http://www.futuristspeaker.com/business-trends/2-billion-jobs-to-disappear-by2030/

WHERE TO START
•

•

•

•

HOW TO EXCEL + DIFFERENTIATE

Start by identifying critical leadership roles and assess•

readiness of your talent to embrace and pioneer digitaltransformation.
Rethink your competency framework to include
emergent knowledge and skills to focus leader
development. Many companies going throughunprecedented change have not reexamined theircompetency models.
Develop digital accelerator leadership-immersion
programs. This is an excellent approach to building both••technical know-how and leadership capability.
Move beyond simply “doing digital” via discrete
technology implementations to “being digital,” anembedded leadership mindset and way of working.

© Development Dimensions International, Inc., The Conference
Board Inc., EYGM Limited, 2018. All rights reserved.

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Some of your current leadership bench will be unable toacquire a new mindset. They may need to be replacedwith more digitally capable leaders.
Lead for the future of the organization. Nurture anddevelop leaders as much as those running the legacy
business. New leaders will not only require a technicalmindset, but also the imagination and vision of how
technology can enable their organization’s competitive
position.
Foster a digital ecosystem for leaders to thrive. This
includes new approaches to learning, rewards, use of
space, and elimination of hierarchies. Place great
digitally ready leaders in a traditional culture, and they
will surely fail.

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Global Leadership Forecast 2018

Accelerating theDigital Journey
Changing Old Leadership Mindsets
and Ways of Working
In our section, “Digital-Era Leadership,” we put forth a new model of leadership and demonstrated that leaders who are
more digitally capable exert a positive impact on their organization’s performance. We also showed that this new-era
digital leadership requires a full and complex range of skills, including interpersonal, analytic, and technical. To thrive inthis new era, most organizations will need to build new skills and capabilities; they’ll also need to overcome oldmindsets and ways of working. This won’t be achieved by the delivery of formal training and learning alone. The
workplace must become the learning environment. To assure this transition, everyone in the organization will need tobe learning every day.
> Meeting New Workplace Challenges© Development Dimensions International, Inc., The Conference
Board Inc., EYGM Limited, 2018. All rights reserved.

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Global Leadership Forecast 2018

How Do Organizations Accelerate Their Digital
Journey?
We explored dozens of organizational operating environmentsthat elevate the bar from simply “doing digital” to truly “being
digital.” Three emerge as critical:• New learning cultures. Building digital-era leadershipcapability requires a workplace where everyone learns
every day. There’s a heavy emphasis on experiential
development. Highly capable digital-ready leaders, thepioneers, actively manage their own growth anddevelopment. Compared to their peers who aren’t asskilled, digitally-ready leaders in Singapore are more likely(91 versus 73 percent) to take on stretch assignments tobuild new skills. They’re also more likely to provide input
to grow the business (70 versus 52 percent) and seek itfrom others to grow themselves (97 versus 82 percent).
Getting the culture right delivers more able, confident
leaders. The figure at left shows the differences in leaders’confidence to face these challenges. Pioneers (digitally
adept leaders) are significantly more confident than the digital laggards in handling every challenge. They are 17.0
times more confident operating in a digital environment, and 6.1 times more likely to anticipate and react tochange.
• New working environment. Today’s high-performing operating environments are purpose-driven and teambased, with shallower hierarchies. They enable workforce mobility and deliver a consumer-grade technology
experience to internal workers, aligning modern performance and rewards practices to the right behaviors.
Developing the right environment drives productivity and learning. Digital-ready leaders in Singapore are more
likely to see their organization as embracing or even rewarding failure in pursuit of innovation (39 versus 26
percent). Additionally, 82 percent of digital-ready leaders feel a strong sense of accountability for effectively leading
their people, compared to only 64 percent for leaders who are not ready.
• New role of HR. Building digital organizations requires a reset of talent and leadership infrastructures. The HR
function must transform to become nimbler, data-driven, tech-savvy, and tied to the evolving business needs.
• Yet, HR is one of the least effective functions. In Singapore, only 7 percent of HR professionals report being very
prepared to operate in a digital environment. This is quite ironic: How can digitally-challenged HR leaders take thepoint on modernizing the way talent will need to be developed, engaged, and deployed in the future?
Analysis of the global data reveals a considerable payoff for accelerated digital transformation. The figure above
examines five elements essential to operating in a highly digital workplace. Digitally mature organizations (those farther
along in their digital transformation) have stronger overall cultures than their less-mature counterparts—by a factor of
10.5. As we mentioned above, they’re more likely to encourage and reward experimentation and far more focused on
future possibilities, not past constraints. And, they’re nearly seven times more likely to lead with agility. Finally, datadriven decisions are used more heavily.

WHERE TO STARTHOW TO EXCEL + DIFFERENTIATE

Examine every aspect of your talent management
system. Make sure it’s building capable, future-ready•digital leaders.
Ensure that you’re reinforcing a culture where people
continuously grow and learn. The workplace, not the

•

•

•

classroom, has become the primary learning
environment.
Invest resources to build HR leaders’ skills in using digitaltechnologies and predictive analytics. As they become
more adept, they’ll embrace the new way of working.

•© Development Dimensions International, Inc., The Conference
Board Inc., EYGM Limited, 2018. All rights reserved.

•

15

Measure and work on your organization’s learning
culture.
Take an integrated approach to building a future
workplace. Use rewards, workforce mobility, andtechnology experiences and leverage physical spaceand structure to drive collaboration and innovation.
Stop talking and start transforming. You need to standshoulder-to-shoulder, starting with HR as custodians ofyour organization’s assets.

www.ddiworld.com/glf2018

Global Leadership Forecast 2018

Leading with Data-Driven
Decisions
The Culture and Skills Driving
Higher Returns on Data
Nearly seven years after the first “Big Data” articles appeared in major business publications, many organizations
struggle to counter Big Data’s substantial costs with newly unlocked value. A 2017 study* found that fewer than half ofsenior Fortune 1000 decision makers see measurable returns from Big Data. In Global Leadership Forecast 2018, acrossthe global sample of data, companies whose leaders are well prepared to use data to guide decisions are 8.7 times more
likely to have closely integrated talent and business strategies, 7.4 times more likely to have a strong bench of future
leaders, and 2.1 times more likely to have grown aggressively over the past three years, compared to organizations whose
leaders are ill-prepared for a data-rich business context. But these are the outcomes, not the drivers. What is theleadership context—the culture and skills—that makes these returns not only possible, but probable?

> The Cultural Factors that Make Data-Savvy Organizations Unique© Development Dimensions International, Inc., The Conference
Board Inc., EYGM Limited, 2018. All rights reserved.

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Global Leadership Forecast 2018

Traits of a Data-Driven Enterprise
We identified the five cultural factors (shown in the graphic
at left) in which data-savvy organizations most exceedorganizations where leaders struggle with data:
1. Strength of company culture. Data-savvy companies
build the shared mental models vital for cultural
strength by actively measuring and reacting tocustomer and employee viewpoints.
2. Experimentation mindset. Data provides theconfidence to launch and gauge the success ofexperiments and to objectively learn from failures.
3. Digital technology influence. Technology is a prime
source for new volumes and varieties of data; digitaladvancement parallels being data-savvy.
4. Focus on future vision. Data informs trajectories andtrends via prescriptive and predictive analytics.
5. Organizational agility. Agile organizations are fueledby rapid data acquisition and action.
Yet, the need to be data-driven isn’t limited to a particular
style of leadership: whether EQ or IQ is more important, whether leaders have an execution or an engagement focus, orwhether leaders derive power from personal versus position-based influence.

The Skills of Data-Savvy Leaders
In addition to rating their preparedness to use data in making decisions, leaders also rated their confidence in
16 skills. The figure above orders skills based on their link with data-savvy (a longer bar equals a stronger link). The
statistics presented to the left of each skill represent the percentage of effective leaders in Singapore.
Not surprisingly, leading with digitization (using technology to manage the workforce) heads the list. Also in the top fiveare leading virtual teams and digital literacy (personal technology expertise). These are also the skills with the lowest
percentages where less than 50% of the Singapore leaders rate themselves effective. To underscore the fact that being
data-savvy isn’t only about being digital, two management skills also made the top five: driving execution and integration(combining information from multiple sources). This confirmation of the importance of managerial capabilities parallels
2017 research from MIT Sloan**.
Notably, the bottom-three skills—empathy, connectivity, and collaboration—aren’t recognized enough for the role they
can play in using data not just adeptly, but fairly and in partnership with others. A tighter connection of interpersonal
skills to data-driven decisions may be a path for organizations to improve their low success rates extracting value frombig data.
* Bean, R. (2017), How Companies Say They’re Using Big Data, Harvard Business Review.
** Bughin, J., & Hazan, E. (2017), Five management strategies for getting the most from AI, MIT Sloan Management Review.

WHERE TO START•••HOW TO EXCEL + DIFFERENTIATE

Use data to create a common culture. Strong cultures•aren’t formed by accident; they’re fostered carefully andmonitored by aggressively using data to understand how
employees and customers view the company and thenreacting accordingly.
Build digital skills. Digital acumen at both a personal level(understanding new technologies oneself) and aleadership level (using technologies to lead others in
different, more-effective ways) is key for successful datadriven decisions.
But don’t neglect the execution element. Leaders who
excel at using data effectively also integrate it frommultiple sources and know how to convert the data’s
strategic insights into operational plans.

© Development Dimensions International, Inc., The Conference
Board Inc., EYGM Limited, 2018. All rights reserved.

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Don’t overlook empathy, connectivity, and collaboration.
Few leaders see the connection between interpersonal
skills and ability to use data effectively for businessdecisions. This is a prime opportunity to strengthenawareness of these links and to factor in the human
implications of data.
Implement Agile project management techniques. Agile
methodologies provide the cadence, mindset, andopportunity to flow high volumes, varieties, and velocities
of data into actionable use.
Prepare for AI. Efficient and ethical artificial intelligence
applications, already in the strategic plans for manyorganizations, will require a critical mass of leaders whoseskills span digital, management, and interpersonaldomains.

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Global Leadership Forecast 2018

Why Technology
Leaders Are Failing
The High Cost of Low-Chance Development
Technology companies are known for being leading-edge and driving innovative ways to meet customer demands. Thisventure can overtake—and overshadow—their focus on growing internal customers. As a result, technology
organizations face unique leadership challenges, including lower engagement and retention, fueled by an acceleratingcompetition for talent. Among the more than 2,400 organizations participating in Global Leadership Forecast 2018, techcompanies across the globe reported the lowest success rates for their leaders (61 percent). This means that about two of
every five technology leadership assignments are considered failures, a rate that is 20 percent higher than that of otherindustries. What’s causing such a high failure rate? According to global data gathered from 1,086 technology leaders and107 HR professionals, tech companies are falling behind in four key development practices that not only drive higher
success rates, but also affect other leader outcomes, including higher engagement and retention.

> How Technology Industry Leadership Is Falling Behind Other Industries© Development Dimensions International, Inc., The Conference
Board Inc., EYGM Limited, 2018. All rights reserved.

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Global Leadership Forecast 2018

Four Practices that Leave Technology Behind
1. Unclear Career Management
Globally, only 64 percent of leaders in technology said they understand their career path within their organization—14
percent fewer than those in other industries. This is a critical area for improvement, given that establishing clear career
paths not only boosts leaders’ success rates, but also consistently drives their engagement and retention. In technology
organizations the potential upside is great, as tech leaders show 17 percent lower engagement and are twice as likely toturn over as leaders in other industries.

2. No Plan for Development
In addition to lacking a clear career path, only one-third of tech leaders surveyed worldwide have an up-to-datedevelopment plan—32 percent fewer than other industries. Having a current plan in place guides leaders to track andmeasure their development progress. It also makes them accountable for their own development. Without this guidance
and accountability, development is left to chance.

3. Development Is Too DIY
In tech organizations, leadership development is more DIY and out of alignment with what leaders want in otherindustries. The three types of learning sought most by technology leaders around the world—external coaching (74percent), formal development (60 percent), and short-term developmental assignments (50 percent)—are provided least
often by their companies in comparison to those in other industries. Instead, tech companies reported a higher relianceon internal coaching and self-study, which only 34 percent of leaders said they wanted.

4. Development Is Out of Discussion
Worldwide, thirty-two percent more tech leaders reported that they never meet with their manager to have performance
discussions. For those who did meet, the discussions focused more on current performance than development. In fact,tech leaders spent the least time talking about personal development in their performance discussions overall—on
average, 23 percent less than leaders in other industries.
According to technology HR professionals, they also are more likely to have eliminated performance ratings. Nearly
twice as many technology companies than other industries (31 versus 17 percent) reported that they’ve stopped using
performance management ratings. This might be leading them to abandon valuable development discussions altogether,to the detriment of overall quality. Tech leaders rated their performance management programs significantly lower thanother industries, with only 27 percent of leaders identifying their performance management program as high quality.
That figure contrasts to 36 percent of leaders in other industries across the globe.

Lower Investment, Higher Risk
In addition to lagging in these four practices, technology organizations are investing far less time and money onleadership development. On average, tech companies worldwide spend 15 percent less on first-level leadershipdevelopment than organizations in other industries. Spending is more equal for senior-level and high-potential
leadership development, though it still runs 6 percent behind other industries. Even more critical than the gap in dollars
spent is the shortage of hours invested in developing leaders. On average, technology leaders spend only 25 hours instructured development each year, 10 percent less than leaders in other industries.

WHERE TO START•

Step up your focus on development. Communicate more•

frequently about it and seek feedback on your efforts.
Once leaders start thinking and talking about it, thefrequency of development discussions will increase.
Diagnose individual and group development needs.

•

HOW TO EXCEL + DIFFERENTIATE•

Assess leaders to identify their development needs, thencenter plans on improving in those areas. Leverage
aggregate data to determine the greatest group gapsthat can inform future leader selection and promotion.
Redefine the business of development plans. Given thatdevelopment targets are business goals, hold leaders
accountable for meeting them. Require leaders tocomplete and act on their development.

© Development Dimensions International, Inc., The Conference
Board Inc., EYGM Limited, 2018. All rights reserved.

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Invest in more blended learning. Establish an online librarythat supports what leaders are learning via more
traditional, structured coaching and development
initiatives. Providing a mix of methods enables a broader
basis of development. Leverage, but don’t limit leaders
to, on-demand external learning content.
Drive retention with clearer paths to advancement. Ensurethat leaders have a clear understanding of how they’ll
grow to increase their development focus and retention.
Leaders who aren’t sure about their advancement pathwill be more likely to seek career growth elsewhere.

www.ddiworld.com/glf2018

Global Leadership Forecast 2018

Rethinking Leadership
Potential
Why Broader Is Better
Identifying and preparing future leaders is a quintessential “top of the house” issue. Our research drew on responses
from nearly 1,000 senior-level leaders across the globe to identify the issues demanding their greatest attention for the
coming year. Their top two concerns are deeply integrated with proactive talent strategy and high-potential
management: developing “Next Gen” leaders and failure to attract/retain top talent. To provide context, senior leaderschose these issues more than twice as often as slowing economic growth in emerging markets, labor relations, and global
recession. This intense focus also cascades into cost and time investments: On average, companies worldwide spend$4,000 and 39 hours per high-potential leader, per year for development activities. For organizations with 1,000 highpotential leaders, this translates to an annual investment of more than $4 million and 4,800 person-days. Clearly, thestakes are high for a data-driven evaluation of high-potential programs’ effectiveness.

> Top 10 Practices for Boosting High-Potential Leader Success Rates© Development Dimensions International, Inc., The Conference
Board Inc., EYGM Limited, 2018. All rights reserved.

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Global Leadership Forecast 2018

Mixed Results on Potential’s Progress
It’s important to start by recognizing the signs of positive movement for high-potential programs between 2014 and now:
Globally, high-potential success rates are up from 56 to 61 percent, and high-potential programs are more gender-diverse, aboost from 19 to 24 percent women. The next layer of data, however, reveals problem signs for potential efforts. Despite 65
percent of organizations having high-potential programs, 68 percent rated them as less than highly effective. Outcome
links are also unraveling: Globally, relationships between high-potential programs and leadership outcomes are 19 percent
weaker now than in 2014.
And perhaps most alarming, looking at the most important reason these programs exist—to address CEOs’ top concern
by building a strong pipeline of future-ready leaders—progress is nonexistent at best and retreating at worst. Currently
only 14 percent of organizations worldwide feel they have a strong bench (down slightly from 15 percent in 2014), andonly 43 percent of critical roles can be filled rapidly by internal candidates (down from 46 percent).

The Perils of a Top-Down, Top-Only View
To gauge why few organizations succeed in cultivating potential, we looked at one of the first decisions made whencreating a high-potential program: how deeply to extend it. Nearly half of organizations across the globe (46 percent) limit
their potential focus to senior-most levels. Even more troubling, this percentage has barely changed from 2014 (45 percent)and reflects a costly misstep.
Globally, organizations that opt to extend their development of high-potential talent below senior levels are 4.2 times
more likely to outperform those that don’t on a financial composite of revenue growth, operating margin, EBITDA, andreturn on equity.

Can Bigger Pools Drive Better Outcomes?
The conventional wisdom that high-potential efforts need to be restricted to an exclusive few simply isn’t supported by
the research. Globally, companies designate 32 percent of their leaders as high potential, up from 25 percent in 2014, andlarger pools tend to be more effective. Yet, just stocking the pool with more leaders isn’t the key to success. Use ofanalytics, peer and mentor-driven coaching, long-term developmental assignments, and personalized learning propelorganizations to outperform companies with a narrowly constrained view of potential. Larger pool sizes alone aren’t theanswer; rather, a full reshaping of a company’s orientation toward potential is required.

Best Practices Aren’t Just About the Pool
Turning to the practices themselves, the graphic at left shows the top 10 practices linked to higher success rates for highpotentials around the world. Most companies don’t use them all; in fact, just 18 percent of companies, worldwide, use all,and over a third use half or fewer. Note that not even half of the practices driving success are specific to high potentials.
Instead, they deal with core themes of development, diagnosis, and objectivity for all, representing an inclusive,
systematic view of potential.

Driving Returns on Potential Investments
As noted earlier, high-potential programs and individuals require outsized investments. When pairing these financial
figures with an average success rate of 61 percent for high-potential leaders across the globe, it translates to wasted
expense (for the 39 percent not successful) of about $1.6 million and 1,900 person-days. By employing proven practices,
organizations can dramatically boost return on their investment in potential.
WHERE TO START
•

•

•

•

•

HOW TO EXCEL + DIFFERENTIATE

Broaden the potential pool. It’s neither sufficient nor•

financially responsible to limit the high-potential view tothe organization’s top level.
Target diversity, not just numbers. When companies
expand their view of potential, they increase gender
diversity for leaders at all levels.
Don’t invite more without building objectivity. Bigger pools
are more likely to be data-driven, boosting inclusivity
along with head counts.
Create a culture of coaching. Companies with more
successful pools use peer coaching and external mentors
heavily.
Use scalable tools for deeper diagnosis. It’s rare that thesame tools used with a senior leader-only view will beappropriate for a full-pipeline talent review; introduce
new tools accordingly.

© Development Dimensions International, Inc., The Conference
Board Inc., EYGM Limited, 2018. All rights reserved.

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Hours over money. Hours spent on high-potential
development has a 68 percent stronger relationship toleadership and business outcomes than money spent,including a significant link to the financial composite that
doesn’t exist for money spent.
Prioritize immersive, personalized learning. Formal
learning that incorporates personalization to the highpotential learner and well-planned developmental
assignments increases success rates.
Strengthen your analytics backbone. High-potential
success rates rise with benchmarking, forecasting, results
metrics, and data visualization in place.
Track return on the potential investment. High-impact
practices can yield high returns, but only when
integrated, sustained, and monitored.

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Global Leadership Forecast 2018

Meeting the Needsof the Modern LearnerTechnology Gains Its Footing,but It’s a Slippery Slope
The scope and variety of learning methods continue a rapid advance at a pace that is only likely to accelerate as pressure
mounts to adjust and revitalize learning in academic institutions and graduates flow into the workforce. Fueled bydemand from incoming “digital natives” and funded by tuition increases, educational institutions are often at the leadingedge of learning transformation. In the workplace it’s daunting to respond to these pressures and decide among the vast
range of learning methods and approaches. HR professionals face particularly difficult choices about synchronizing
complementary modalities, how to appropriately blend technology-centric and high-touch (formal training, coaching)learning, and how to apply learning back in the workplace. Although organizations want to meet the needs of all modern
learners, the choices and tradeoffs are complex and becoming even more so. In this research, we took stock of theleadership learning landscape, factoring in company usage and leader preferences to recommend an evidence-based pathforward for learning design.

> How Much Leaders Want—and Are Getting—19 Learning Methods for Developing Singapore Leaders© Development Dimensions International, Inc., The Conference
Board Inc., EYGM Limited, 2018. All rights reserved.

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Global Leadership Forecast 2018

Meeting Modern Learners’ Needs
To understand where learning needs to go, we started with the needs of learners themselves. We saw high consistency
across generations. The three features Singapore learners prefer most include (in this order):1. Personalized learning experiences.
2. Coaching from external mentors.
3. Externally-developed.
While this is what learners want, what they actually get can be far different. In the graphic at left, we juxtaposed learner
preferences with company use for 19 learning types and methods, to yield three categories:
Leaders Want More than They’re Getting (6 types)—This category includes coaching from external mentors, longterm developmental assignments, personalized, on-demand, game-based, and mobile device-based. It spotlights leaders’thirst for external perspectives on their challenges—many of which aren’t unique to their own company—as well as
immersive development and personalized “anytime, anywhere” learning.
Leaders Get More than They’re Wanting (5)— Methods include coaching from the current manager, books/articles,
self-study, and internally developed learning. Surprisingly, many leaders would prefer a bit less manager coaching,perhaps because many managers aren’t very good at it. Leaders also have reservations about “on-the-job learning”
morphing into “on-your-own” learning through self-study and books/articles. This category also reflects the limitationsof internally developed content, which might not fully capture the external business context.
About Right (8)—Coaching from peer leaders, coaching leaders receive from their employees, short-term developmental
assignments, formal workshops/training courses/seminars, microlearning, externally developed, computer-based, social
network-based, and podcast. These learning approaches are roughly in line for what leaders want and what theircompanies are offering. This category includes a rarely used technology: social network-based learning. Leaders might nothave seen these methods enough yet to gauge its value.

Technology Alone Isn’t Enough…
Despite its immense attention and expense, our data shows that technology isn’t having a notable impact on leadershipor business outcomes above and beyond coaching (from managers, peers, external mentors, and employees). Nor is it
surpassing high-touch methods such as formal learning and development assignments.

…But Adds Value When It’s Need-Matched
Technology’s role becomes clearer, however, when viewed as an accelerator of learning impact. Globally, the link
between learning programs and leader quality is 46 percent stronger when technology is used heavily. It also improves
back-to-the-job application, raising it from 55 percent with minimal technology use to 63 percent with extensive use.
The future of technology in learning will be driven by companies using it to address the unmet needs of the modern
learner identified in the “Leaders Want More than They’re Getting” cluster. It’s not about implementing technology for
its own sake, particularly not to enable the self-study forms of learning that many leaders shun. When technology isdesigned and implemented to match a need, it generates value for on-demand, personalized, and mobile learning, andto connect leaders with external mentors. Technology works best when giving “always on” learners the tools and accessthey need to constantly seek opportunities to grow themselves and others.
WHERE TO START•••HOW TO EXCEL + DIFFERENTIATE

Pursue learning personalization. This was by far the•dominant feature defining what leaders want most.
Technology’s potential here is immense to bringpersonalization to large-scale learning. This includes newtechniques such as machine learning and natural
language processing to rapidly distill information into
personalized recommendations.
Restore the value of manager coaching. Leaders’ opinions ofmanager coaching—comparing needs with wants—aredecidedly neutral, but don’t have to be. Reinforce
managers’ coaching skills to push this form of learning backto a “want more” state.
Understand the learning problems technology will solve.
Don’t invest further in learning technology until you’recertain you understand the problems it will solve andneeds it will meet. This is the key to stronger technology
impact and ROI.

© Development Dimensions International, Inc., The Conference
Board Inc., EYGM Limited, 2018. All rights reserved.

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Shift away from self-service. Technology driven or not,learners want much less self-study learning. Make learnerenablement about on-demand rather than assignment, andtailored to a leader’s own development plan rather than
generic.
Experiment with game-based learning. Though few
companies are putting these approaches in place, they are
more sought-after by Millennial leaders than othergenerations.
Extend learning beyond the classroom. Learning reinforced
through prompts and practice—often, but not only, throughtechnology tools—better “sticks” once the leader is back on
the job.
Appoint a Learning Experience Manager. Only 37 percent ofcompanies have this role in place, but those that do are 5.5
times more likely to have highly effective leadershipdevelopment systems.

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Global Leadership Forecast 2018

Making the Most ofHigh-Potential Talent
Avoiding a Mismatch Between What
They Want and Get
Globally, 0rganizations spend more money developing high potentials than any other group of leaders, including thesenior team. High-potential leaders also spend more hours per year in formal leadership training than any otherleadership group. Companies around the world annually spend an average of $4,000 and 39 hours per high-potential
leader. Given the money and time expended, how can organizations ensure that they’re reaping benefits of cultivatingthese would-be high performers?
Knowing what high-potential leaders want from their development experiences can shape a company’s strategy and leadto positive outcomes. High-potential respondents to our survey were clear: They’re looking for tailored development.
From a list of 10 development types (see figure below), four of their top five preferences are types of learning that are
tailored to their own needs. Coaching from external mentors tops the list, and short-term and long-term development
assignments and coaching from current managers are also in the top five. High-potential leaders also desire formal
workshops and training courses, the type of learning that’s provided most frequently by organizations.
> Mismatch Between Leadership Development Offerings and What High-Potential Leaders Desire in Singapore© Development Dimensions International, Inc., The Conference
Board Inc., EYGM Limited, 2018. All rights reserved.

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Global Leadership Forecast 2018

Identifying High Potentials
Many organizations are caught in the same dilemma:
how to identify high potentials, how to develop them as
leaders, and when to promote them. The benefits to having
them are obvious, but how can organizations maximize
their contribution and keep them engaged?
Simply identifying high potentials within the organization iscorrelated with positive business results. Companies thatknow who their high potentials are have greater benchstrength, and leaders who have been notified of their highpotential status are more engaged and more likely tocommit energy to growth and development opportunities.
Globally, turnover is also lower among high potentials (11percent per year) than the general leadership population (13percent).
Many organizations around the world are seeing thisbenefit. About 65 percent of companies we surveyed identify
high potentials, and of those organizations, almost 60
percent inform them of their special status. While HR
professionals mostly agree that their identification methods
are unbiased (73 percent), their evaluation methods are
sound (69 percent), and that their program is targeted to specific needs of this group (76 percent), about 27 percent ofrespondents disagree with each of these statements (see figure above). Even more worrisome, a full 33 percent ofrespondents note that their organization’s process for identifying high potentials is inconsistent.

Are High Potentials Getting the Learning They Want Most?
In some cases, high potentials get the desired learning, but not often enough. In Singapore, long-term developmental
assignments rank as the number 3 most-desired learning method, and 46 percent of them have completed at least one
international assignment. More than half (61 percent) have had a formal mentor. That said, 39 percent of leaders not
identified as high potential also have had a formal mentor, and 54 percent of those individuals have completed aninternational assignment.
Considering this small difference, not much more is being done for high potentials, who strongly desire such
experiences. Additionally, though coaching from external mentors ranks number 1 on list of desired developmental
experiences for high potentials, it ranks number 8 in terms of what companies actually provide. Using books and articles
is a commonly provided developmental activity, but it ranks low on the list of the types of learning high potentials wantat number 9. Organizations can provide more targeted learning opportunities for high potentials by increasing coachingand developmental assignments for them.
Among several key activities to identify and manage high potential, most HR professionals agree that their organization
evaluates high-potential performance, but measuring effectiveness of programs is a weakness (see figure above).

HOW TO EXCEL + DIFFERENTIATE

WHERE TO START
•

•

•

•

Consistently identify high potentials. You can do this via
clear evaluation criteria around competencies andexpectations.
Evaluate high potentials’ success. Measure the successof high-potential development programs to ensure thatofferings satisfy these leaders’ learning needs andpreferences.
Evaluate selection and promotion processes for bias andconsistency. This was an area of perceived weakness by•

HR leaders in our study. If it’s a concern in yourorganization, work with leaders to ensure that consistent,
quantitative measures of leader success are applied
across the organization.

© Development Dimensions International, Inc., The Conference
Board Inc., EYGM Limited, 2018. All rights reserved.

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Give high potentials the tailored learning experiences
they crave. This means external coaching, short-termand special projects, or rotational-placement programs.
Some experiences can be provided at low cost.
Provide simulations of major events or decisions. Theseexperiences allow leaders to practice reacting to realistic
scenarios. Networking events to expose high potentials tosenior leaders and mentoring programs can have significant
impact as well. Designing these experiences may require
greater creativity and thoughtfulness than typicaldevelopment programs, but they can lead to greater
returns.

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Global Leadership Forecast 2018

Performance Management
Are Ratings Overrated for Growing Leaders?
Several years into the “performance management revolution,”* debate continues on how best to approach the core, yet
deceptively nuanced, managerial activity of holding performance discussions with employees. Many organizations have
overhauled (in some cases, multiple times) their approaches to these conversations, oscillating across a matrix of how
often (frequency of performance management meetings and revisions) and how development-centric (proportion of
discussion time devoted to personal development versus administrative oversight). While a trend is gradually taking
shape toward performance management that is more frequent, less formal, and centered around future growth, researchis limited about which approaches work best. Our research addresses these topics with a global sample pairingorganizational practices with leaders who are both engaging and participating in (with their own managers)
performance management discussions.

> Advantages of Development-Focused Performance Management© Development Dimensions International, Inc., The Conference
Board Inc., EYGM Limited, 2018. All rights reserved.

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Global Leadership Forecast 2018

Top Three Performance Management Practices
We started with a foundational question: What practices produce better performance management? Globally, we foundin those that tend to drive effectiveness:
1. Performance management is fair and transparent at all levels (31 percent increase in effectiveness).
2. Performance management discussions focus heavily on development planning (25 percent increase).
3. Performance management discussions occur continually, rather than yearly (24 percent increase).
The global data shows that performance management works best when fair, focused on development, and frequent.
While these findings might not be surprising, it’s notable that only 27 percent of Singapore companies consistently have
all three practices in place with their leaders. That is, just because it’s logical doesn’t mean it’s being done.
Stepping outside the core performance management program, we looked at how this system relates to the broader
context of aligning and reinforcing leader performance. Worldwide, high-caliber performance management occurs
simultaneously with several other practices: leaders exhibit and receive feedback on key skills, leaders regularly review
development plans, and the organization has up-to-date knowledge of leadership talent capability (essential for analytics
and workforce planning).

What’s the Impact of Dropping Ratings?
One of the most controversial, discussed (though rarely researched), and disruptive trends in performance management
is the elimination of ratings. We found that 20 percent of companies worldwide and 18 percent of Singapore companies
have done so. This shift was particularly common in rapidly changing markets: China and India, and the professional
services and technology industries. Is this a sign of progressive action or of a retreat from solid practice?
When ratings are eliminated, the impact on performance management effectiveness is relatively slight—just a 7 percent
boost was observed across the globe. However, it was linked to a sizeable increase in leader quality and bench strength
as well as two forms of gender diversity. Companies that drop ratings have more women leaders as high potentials andat senior levels. Removing ratings appears to reduce diversity-limiting bias.

Double-Down on Development
After finding that both development focus and discussion frequency were driving factors of performance management
effectiveness, we dug deeper to gauge which matters most. For organizations advising their leaders, what should
they recommend?
What leaders talk about matters far more than how often, shown in the graphic at left. Engagement levels for those
whose performance is being managed surge when at least 75 percent of the discussion centers on development (only 10
percent of Singapore leaders get this currently). The primacy of focus over frequency is so strong that it’s better to have a
75 percent focused-development conversation once a year than a 25 percent development conversation weekly. While
this certainly isn’t recommended—frequency is important for many other reasons given the pace and agility ofbusiness—it shows development’s dominance.
The benefits of a development focus for performance management are no less powerful for leaders and organizations.
For leaders, it’s strongly linked to career path clarity, satisfaction with advancement, and strongly counteracts turnover
intentions. For organizations, it’s linked to higher leader preparation to face business challenges of customer change,
digital business, and using data to guide decisions.
* Capelli, P., & Tavis, A. (2016, October), The Performance Management Revolution, Harvard Business Review.

WHERE TO START
•

•

•

•

HOW TO EXCEL + DIFFERENTIATE

Establish process fairness and transparency. Clearly•communicate the factors used in ratings, updating as
needed when expectations change.
Center the discussion agenda on development. Though
it’s rarely possible to focus solely on development,
prioritize it highest (ideally, 75+ percent) to maximize
outcomes.
Target a quarterly cadence. More frequent in-depth
performance management discussions are linked tohigher engagement; however, these advantages
decrease beyond every three months.
Gauge satisfaction with career pathing andadvancement. The more often managers meet with and••linked to higher leader quality, bench strength, andgender diversity. Companies that take this step keepemphasis on talent status and often repurpose todevelopment the time once spent discussing ratings.
Match the frequency of performance discussions to thepace of business. When discussions are held more often,
companies experiment more, are more agile, and havebetter adopted digital technologies.
Coach managers to drive engagement throughdevelopment discussions. Solid (and often-reinforced)
manager skills are vital to repeatedly plan and conductpersonalized, growth-focused discussions.

revise leaders’ performance plans, the more positively
they view career progression.

© Development Dimensions International, Inc., The Conference
Board Inc., EYGM Limited, 2018. All rights reserved.

Eliminate ratings only after recognizing the effects andplanning to fill the information gap. Dropping ratings is27

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Global Leadership Forecast 2018

Want to Be a Leader?
Get an Early Start“From the experiences of the past, we learn instructive lessons for the future.” So said John Quincy Adams, the sixth U.S.
president, during his inaugural address. For the past few decades, we’ve talked about the degree to which experiences
shape leadership behavior. In Global Leadership Forecast 2014|2015, we showed the specific types of job experiences thatshape leadership behavior. Experiences that impact a leader’s career can occur well before a promotion to leadership or
before that person enters the workforce. This finding examines earlier life experiences, an area not previously addressedin our research.

The Earlier, the Better
The figure below shows the frequency of seven experiences and motivations from leaders. An early motivation to leadplays a significant role in a person’s decision to pursue a leadership position. Slightly more than 75 percent of Singapore
leaders surveyed had leadership ambitions early in their life or working careers. Two additional early life experiences
may especially influence the motivation to lead:• Parents as working leader role models. 38 percent of leaders had parents who held leadership jobs.
• An elected or early volunteer leadership position. Nearly 58 percent of leaders held such a position (for example,
club president or sports team captain) long before they entered the workforce.
> Percentage of Singapore Leaders Who Had Experience and Motivation© Development Dimensions International, Inc., The Conference
Board Inc., EYGM Limited, 2018. All rights reserved.

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Global Leadership Forecast 2018

These findings are supported by a recently completed study with
The Conference Board, DDI, and RW2 Enterprises on Millennial
leaders* that involved interviewing leaders at all levels in several
Fortune 500 companies about experiences that shaped them.
One leader cited her parents’ role in providing lessons in how
people should be treated, and noted how this helped mold hercharacter. Another respondent recalled a leadership position inschool government.

> Early Experiences and Motivations with theGreatest Impact

In Singapore, being mentored or mentoring someone else seems
to have a stronger influence on becoming a leader than does
having a parent who held a leadership career. The lower
percentage (12 percent) of involvement in family-run businessmight well trace to lack of opportunity rather than the value ofthe experience itself.
Finally, international assignments can occur anytime during aleader’s work life. Just under half (46 percent) of leaders in
Singapore completed at least one international assignment. This
experience is much more common in Singapore than across theglobe where less than 30 percent have completed aninternational assignment.
Globally, there was a small gender difference for two of the earlyexperience values. Female leaders were more likely than maleleaders to have had parents in a leadership role. Males, on theother hand, had more of an opportunity to serve in a pre-career
leadership role. Perhaps gender role modeling becomes more critical for females in a male-dominated leadership work
environment. And, opportunities to lead may be less available to females before they enter the workforce.

Does It Make a Difference?
The figure above shows the global links between previous experiences, motivations, and outcome variables, with a check
mark indicating a positive relationship. We looked at leadership engagement and retention, leadership self-confidence(a leader’s perception of his or her own abilities versus those of peers), number of promotions, and designation as ahigh-potential individual. Both leadership self-confidence and high-potential status have strong relationships.
We also asked all leaders if they felt prepared to deal with nine challenges associated with working in a complex working
environment. Examples of survey items included operating in a digital environment, anticipating/reacting to speed ofchange, and acting decisively without clear direction. While not universal across all items, leaders across the globe are
better prepared to perform in today’s complex work environment when they’ve had some of the pre-career experiences.
* Ray, R.L., Sinar, E., Wellins, R., Wright, E., Popiela, A., Ye, A., & Paese, M. (2017, January), Divergent Views/Common Ground: The Leadership
Perspectives of C-Suite Executives and Millennial Leaders, New York, The Conference Board.

HOW TO EXCEL + DIFFERENTIATE

WHERE TO START•

Consider previous experiences as you make leadership•selection and placement decisions.
Motivation to lead is essential and often a reason many••

new leaders are happy to return to a role as individual
contributor. Instruments and interview methods exist that
accurately assess motivation to lead.

•

Seek opportunities to place employees in informal
leadership experiences before they apply for or are
asked to fill a formal leadership role.
Explore the use of biodata to get a better read on an
individual’s probability of success as a leader. Artificial
intelligence (AI) soon will play a larger role in examining
prework and work variables in predicting leadership
success.
Like marketing, IT, or any other profession, think ofleadership as a profession. Never underestimate theimpact and influence you can have on your children or
the younger generation in encouraging them toconsider leadership roles inside and outside the work
place.

© Development Dimensions International, Inc., The Conference
Board Inc., EYGM Limited, 2018. All rights reserved.

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Global Leadership Forecast 2018

The Rise of theDigital Natives
Are Millennials Ready to Lead?
Millennials are digital natives. They grew up in a digital environment and seem to embrace technology in all aspects of
their lives. Although we often take for granted that this generation will lead us in digitization, are Millennials really up to
the challenge? Perhaps not as much as we would hope. When comparing preparedness to meet nine critical businesschallenges (such as navigating through complexity, chaos, and confusion; and acting decisively without always having
clear direction), Millennials—the generation born between 1982 and 2000—generally agree with their Baby Boomer andGeneration X counterparts about the challenges for which they feel most and least prepared, as shown in the figure below.

> As a Leader, How Prepared Are You to Meet the Following Business Challenges for Your Organization?

Ranking of how prepared Global leaders are to meet nine business challenges© Development Dimensions International, Inc., The Conference
Board Inc., EYGM Limited, 2018. All rights reserved.

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Global Leadership Forecast 2018

Are Millennials Ready to Lead with
Digitization?
Millennials feel slightly more prepared to operate within ahighly digital business environment than do Baby Boomers
and Gen Xers, but all generations could use moredevelopment in this area. Even for Millennials, it ranks thirdfrom the bottom. Given that Millennials grew up withtechnology, we might think that these digital skills would besecond nature. However, it seems that they need additional
preparation and training to really excel at leading in thedigital space.
In addition, Millennials rated themselves as slightly more
effective at digital literacy and leading with digitization skills
than members of Gen X and Baby Boomers did (see graphic atright). Millennials are less confident in their effectiveness at
leading virtual teams, perhaps because they lack overall
experience in leading teams.
Again, although Millennials rated themselves as more
effective than their older counterparts at some digital skills,
these skills were rated low across all generations.
Organizations will need to step up to prepare leaders to keep
pace with rapidly evolving technology advancements. They
would be wise to arrange additional training or to revamp
hiring and collaboration strategies to flow digital experts into more functions.

Differences Due to Generation or Life Stage?
In 2017, The Conference Board and DDI collaborated on the research report Divergent Views/Common Ground: The
Leadership Perspectives of C-Suite Executives and Millennial Leaders.* In that report, we found that much of thedifference we often attribute to generation is more closely related to career or life stage. Millennial preferences are notlargely different from those of previous generations at similar points in their careers.
We found this to be true in Global Leadership Forecast 2018 as well. As leaders climb the management ladder, they rate
their effectiveness at mastering leadership skills higher. Higher-level leaders, regardless of generation, are more effectiveat connecting ideas, driving execution, and aligning toward common objectives. But there are some generational
differences as well. Millennial leaders across the globe:• Rate their intellectual curiosity higher than other generations.
• Are more likely to seek feedback and input from colleagues and mentors.
• Are more likely to want “stretch” assignments.
* Ray, R.L., et al.(2017, January), Divergent Views/Common Ground: The Leadership Perspectives of C-Suite Executives and Millennial Leaders,
New York, The Conference Board.

WHERE TO START••HOW TO EXCEL + DIFFERENTIATE

Build programs that leverage Millennial strengths.

•

Millennial strength in digitization and comfort with using
data to guide business decisions can enhance digital skills
across the organization.
Take advantage of Millennials’ digital ability. One way to
do this is through reverse mentoring programs. Millennials
can share digital literacy and social media savvy, whilemore experienced employees can share theirorganizational knowledge to ensure that it’s not lost.

© Development Dimensions International, Inc., The Conference
Board Inc., EYGM Limited, 2018. All rights reserved.

•

Define your company’s current digital capabilities.
Consider the digital skills leaders of all generations willneed to move the organization forward. Then, articulate
your digital strategy to the organization so that leaders
can improve their own skills as needed.
Ensure that your leaders are equipped to lead withdigitization. Create a task force of Millennials to involve
them as part of the strategy development. If additional
expertise is needed, evaluate options for building or
acquiring it.

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Global Leadership Forecast 2018

Generation X-Change
Don’t Underestimate the Powerful Influenceof Gen X Leaders
As companies grapple with how to transform and innovate better and faster, the population of leaders guiding thesedecisions is changing dramatically. Most popular discussions about the next generational shift has centered on the massof Baby Boomers retiring or the eager ascension of Millennials into leadership. Often overlooked is the next generation
to leadership, Generation X, which is leading the way in a time of great change with technology advancement, how jobs
are automated and created, and how businesses are designed and transformed. Born between 1965 and 1981 and with anaverage of 20 years’ experience in the workplace, members of “Gen X” are primed to take on nearly every importantleadership role in organizations. In Singapore, they already hold 55 percent of leadership roles and will continue to growinto more senior positions. Yet, little is commonly known about what defines the Gen X leadership experience and style.
It’s time for that to change.

> Four Key Findings on How Generation X Leaders from Global Stand Out© Development Dimensions International, Inc., The Conference
Board Inc., EYGM Limited, 2018. All rights reserved.

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Global Leadership Forecast 2018

The Early Technology Adopters
Although Millennials are most recognized for having grown up with technology, Gen Xers were early technology
adopters and gamers who use social media more habitually than any other generation*. This has translated to theirleadership skill set. According to data from 25,000 Global leaders, ratings from Generation X show they are just as
confident in their digital leadership capability as Millennials, with slightly more than half of Gen X and Millennial
leaders rating themselves as highly or very highly effective (54 percent and 56 percent, respectively). This Gen X digital
savvy is balanced by strength in more conventional leadership skills such as driving execution and building talent, which
are areas in which Millennials rated themselves lower than both Baby Boomer and Gen X leaders.

Slower to Ascend, But Loyal
Perhaps part of the reason that Generation X has flown under the radar in the rise to leadership is that it happened
slowly. Baby Boomers occupied higher-level leadership roles longer in their careers and held off for later retirement.
Meanwhile, Millennials surged into the workforce eagerly, and although this younger generation has often been unfairly
labeled as impatient and promotion-needy, perceptions have an impact.
Gen X may have become the “middle child” in career advancement, as leaders from this generation have the slowest
promotion rate (see figure at left). Compared to leaders from the other generations, Gen X leaders received, on average,
just 1.2 promotions in the last five years with their company, versus an average of 1.6 for Millennials and 1.4 for Baby
Boomers. Interestingly, even though Gen X leaders aren’t advancing as quickly as they would like, they’re less likely thanMillennials to change companies or leave in the near future. Only 37 percent of Gen X leaders across the globe reported
that they expect to change companies to progress their leadership careers, compared to 42 percent of Millennials.

Driving Growth Through External Learning
Although most Gen X leaders aren’t looking outside for a new job, they are seeking more external development andcoaching than any other generation. In fact, leaders from this generational cohort are much more likely than either
Millennial or Baby Boomer leaders to prefer external coaching over internal coaching. Most notably, 67 percent of Gen X
leaders worldwide said they would like more external coaching, compared to only 47 percent who said they want morecoaching from their managers—a 20 percent difference.
Gen Xers also reported that they want more externally developed (57 percent) than internally developed (46 percent)material to support their leadership development, whereas about equal numbers of Millennials (54 percent and 54
percent, respectively) and Baby Boomers (49 percent and 50 percent, respectively) reported wanting more of both typesof material. This is a strong indication that not only do Gen Xers see new opportunity in outside learning, but also thatorganizations that can successfully employ more external learning may be able to extend their capabilities into newareas and lines of business with this next generation of leaders.
* 2016 Nielsen Social Media Report, http://www.nielsen.com/content/dam/corporate/us/en/reports-downloads/2017-reports/2016-nielsensocial-media-report.pdf

WHERE TO START•••HOW TO EXCEL + DIFFERENTIATE

Build tech capability with the right tools. Gen X leaders
have a unique perspective on how to work with,
develop, and leverage new technologies. Provide them,and all leaders, with the tools and support needed toleverage technology for greater business impact.
Provide leaders with more external guidance. Encouragelooking outside the organization for coaching anddevelopment guidance, especially as leaders face newand more complex business challenges for which they
may not have internal mentors.
Don’t promote generational stereotypes. Avoid catering
programs to any single generation or group so that you
don’t alienate others. Seek cross-generational feedback
to improve outcomes for everyone.

© Development Dimensions International, Inc., The Conference
Board Inc., EYGM Limited, 2018. All rights reserved.

•

Encourage leaders to challenge the status quo. Gen Xers•

are taking the lead at a time when change is regular anddesirable. Provide them the freedom andencouragement to try out new approaches andchallenge old ones to encourage innovation andgrowth.
Leverage technology to support traditional development.
The large majority of leaders, regardless of generation,
said they want more traditional learning. Technology canbe a powerful enabler of that development. Gen X andMillennial leaders will especially benefit from additional
technology-based development tools they can accessand control on their own when needed.

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Global Leadership Forecast 2018

Diversity Leaders
How Top Organizations Are Growing Strong
with Women in Leadership
Worldwide forecasts call for women to effect significant, increased economic and financial impact in the next decade,both as consumers and investors. Organizations have much to gain by engaging and leveraging female perspectives
within their workforces, and there’s plenty of room to grow as women still comprise a minority within leadership circles.
According to demographic data gleaned from more than 2,400 organizations around the globe, women currently inhabit
less than one-third (29 percent) of all leadership roles, with the large majority being in first-level management positions.
In Singapore, 26 percent of leadership roles are currently occupied by women. Our global research reveals thatcompanies that have reached an above-average level of gender diversity overall (at least 30 percent) and at the seniorlevel (more than 20 percent), outperform diversity laggards in key leadership and business outcomes. What can we learn
from these diversity leaders, and what are they doing differently? The graphic below depicts key practices that enable astronger pipeline of women at each leadership level.

> Practices that Support Having a Stronger Representation of Women by Leadership Level© Development Dimensions International, Inc., The Conference
Board Inc., EYGM Limited, 2018. All rights reserved.

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Global Leadership Forecast 2018

Don’t Single Out Women, Or Anyone> Impact of Greater Gender Diversity

Worldwide, our research shows that companies achieving astronger balance of gender diversity sustain an advantage beyond
the numbers. Their leadership strategy relies not on meeting any
single demographic target alone, but in integrating diverse
perspectives into people, product, and business decision making
companywide. Beyond succeeding with diversity-enabling
practices identified in the graphic, they stand out in two key ways:• Inclusion is embedded within their culture. Leaders from
more gender-diverse companies indicated that maintaining
multiple and diverse perspectives is critical to achieving
success. They were twice as likely as their low-diversity
counterparts to report that their leaders work together tocreate new solutions and opportunities, and that multiple
perspectives determine success. They also reported a higher
level of collaboration across organizational boundaries.
Leaders from more gender-diverse organizations were 1.5
times more likely to work across organizational boundaries
and create synergies in their efforts.
• Their leaders operate with different mindsets, not skill
sets. On average, leaders from more diverse organizations
weren’t particularly more skilled in any single leadershiparea. Rather, they were more likely to demonstrate a strong
focus on personal development. This development mindset isenabled by organizational practices that emphasize highquality development planning and more regularconversations on personal development.

Succeed with an Inclusive ApproachThis collaborative, integrated approach to growing leadership diversity translates to beneficial people and businessoutcomes (see graphic at right). Diversity-leading organizations, worldwide, were rated by their leaders as:• Having higher-quality leadership.
• Being faster-growing and more agile than their more homogenous counterparts.
• More likely to experiment and embrace failure in pursuit of different and innovative approaches.
Their successes also translated to an impact on the bottom line. Organizations with greater gender-diversity were 1.4
times more likely to have sustained, profitable growth.

WHERE TO START•HOW TO EXCEL + DIFFERENTIATE

Seek the best recruiting sources. Continuously evaluate•

the different channels leveraged for recruitment, andseek new ones. You can’t grow diversity if you’re notcreating new ways of getting new perspectives into thebuilding.
•

possible—to measure. It’s important to consider andvalue the potential impact of any different backgrounds
and experiences that leaders can bring.
•

Hire and promote for diversity. Leverage valid, reliable

Seek out and encourage under-leveraged talent.

•

Encourage leaders to seek different perspectives for new
projects and reward teams that harness inclusion ofmultiple perspectives to generate new ideas andsolutions.

© Development Dimensions International, Inc., The Conference
Board Inc., EYGM Limited, 2018. All rights reserved.

Encourage knowledge-sharing through mentorship.
Provide new and early leaders with mentors from outside
their own functional areas to encourage learning andexchange of diverse ideas.

data on employee capabilities and personalities toguide hiring and promotion decisions.
•

Reframe diversity goals. Not all diversity is easy—or

Continue to grow diversity. Provide high-performing
women with stretch assignments to continue building
their skills and cross-functional knowledge.

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Global Leadership Forecast 2018

Build a Coaching Culture
Want to Be a Better Leader?
Ask a Peer or Employee
Many organizations are fostering a coaching culture to reap benefits beyond senior-leadership levels. They’ve expanded
their focus to developing leaders at all levels and integrating coaching behaviors and expectations into everyday
conversations and formal talent management processes. In such a culture, learning can come from a variety of sources:
peers, managers, employees, and external coaches. When everyone in the company can be a coach, everyone benefits.
Leaders often underestimate what they can learn from their peers and employees on their teams. Global Leadership
Forecast 2018 challenges notions of where learning can and should come from. For example, when organizations use
peer and employee coaching, leaders are more likely to feel strongly engaged and accountable to the company and theirteam than when there is no coaching.
> When Everyone in the Company Can Be a Coach, Everyone Benefits© Development Dimensions International, Inc., The Conference
Board Inc., EYGM Limited, 2018. All rights reserved.

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Global Leadership Forecast 2018

Promoting Shared Leadership
Coaching by managers, employees, peers, or external mentors promotes in leaders a stronger sense of shared leadership.
This includes working with others across silos, collaborating to enhance organizational effectiveness, acting as
custodians of company purpose, and supporting critical activities that align with that purpose.
A coaching culture emphasizes the skills of seeking and listening versus telling someone what to do. When asked fortheir input, peers and employees feel free to challenge and provoke thinking or offer solutions that might not have been
considered. Given the chaotic and fast-changing business environment, having leaders at all levels of the organization(not just those at the very top) coaching each other can provide greater agility to solve problems across the enterprise. A
coaching culture creates space for these conversations and daily coaching moments between leaders and teams, as well
as between colleagues and peers.
A point of disconnect found in the study highlights that while Singapore leaders—including high potentials—want morecoaching from external mentors (ranked number 1 on a list of 10 learning types), organizations aren’t providing thismethod of learning (ranked at number 8 of 10). This is an area of opportunity that companies can leverage to support
engagement and retention.

What Is the Value of Coaching to Organizations?
Measuring and proving the benefit of coaching are not simple tasks, as it can be difficult to isolate its effects from otheractivities. The Conference Board’s recent study, Global Executive Coaching Survey 2016*, finds that organizations tend toevaluate coaching efforts with different approaches. Some of these include formal and informal conversations with key
stakeholders, monitoring coaching deliverables, assessment of satisfaction by those who were coached, and assessmentof behavioral change by managers.
While demonstrating the impact of coaching on business performance remains a challenge, Global Leadership Forecast
2018 finds specific areas of leadership impact that organizations will find valuable. Global data reveals organizations thatuse coaching:• By direct managers and external mentors show greater leadership bench strength, promote more leaders fromwithin, and are more likely to have a pipeline of talent to fill roles immediately.
• In any form (from external coaches, managers, peers, or employees) cultivate leaders who have a greater
understanding of their future leadership career paths and greater satisfaction with their advancement.
• With an external mentor experience lower leader turnover (more so than with coaching from managers).
* Lui Abel, A., Ray, R.L., & Nair, S. (September 2016), Global Executive Coaching Survey 2016, New York, The Conference Board,
https://www.conference-board.org

HOW TO EXCEL + DIFFERENTIATE

WHERE TO START••

Initiate and build a coaching culture by embedding
coaching elements into talent management processes

targeted types of coaching (development-focused,transition, career, on-boarding, team or group, andinclusion coaching).

(training programs, performance management
processes, development plans).
•

Develop leaders at all levels to be coaches. Enhance•senior leader communication around the value ofcoaching and create incentives and rewards to reinforcecoaching behaviors.
••

Many organizations use internal coaches (formal
executive coaches who are also employees) whose
understanding of corporate dynamics and cultural norms
allows them to guide leaders in navigating change andintegrate teams to boost performance. Internal coaching
can scale efforts in building a coaching culture andsupporting a larger pool of leaders lower in the hierarchy.

Coaching often can be included in leadership cohort
programs as a strong complement to other learning
By including (and rewarding) coaching behaviors in
performance expectations, every leader at any level candemonstrate the skills with peers, managers, and teams.

© Development Dimensions International, Inc., The Conference
Board Inc., EYGM Limited, 2018. All rights reserved.

Use analytics to measure and communicate the impact
of coaching. This can be a game-changer.

activities.
•

Enhance your coaching culture by designing personaland customized coaching solutions. These can be37

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Global Leadership Forecast 2018

Mentoring for Impact
How to Maximize a Critical Leadership Experience
For many reasons, mentoring is one of new leaders’ most sought-after development experiences. Not only does it enable
them to gain broader, deeper perspective and knowledge of their business, but it also allows leaders to network andconnect with people outside their immediate functional groups. And its benefits extend beyond the individual being
mentored. Organizations that operationalize mentoring gain connections between new leaders and mentors, keep
practical experience and wisdom in house, and break down silos between functional groups. Yet, despite the potential
impact, only about one-third of organizations in Singapore (36 percent) have a formal mentoring program for theirleaders. What distinguishes the successful organizations, and what is the impact of engaging more leaders in formal
mentoring relationships? The graphic below depicts some of the benefits and sheds light on why more organizations andleaders should engage in mentoring.

> Organizational Benefits of Having a Formal Mentoring Culture© Development Dimensions International, Inc., The Conference
Board Inc., EYGM Limited, 2018. All rights reserved.

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Global Leadership Forecast 2018

Seven Findings on the State of Mentoring
We explored the state of mentoring across the full set of 2,488 organizations that participated in Global Leadership
Forecast 2018. We found that few factors differentiate the organizations that offer formal mentoring beyond the benefits
they and their leaders are receiving (see graphic at left). Here are the top seven findings about mentoring from leadersand organizations across the globe:
1. Most leaders have had no mentor. Only 46 percent of the leaders in Singapore have had a formal mentor.
2. Fewer early leaders have access to mentors. About half (52 percent) of the first-level leaders in Singapore have
not had a formal mentor. This represents a wasted opportunity, given the proven payoff.
3. More Millennials have had mentors. Even though they’ve had shorter careers than their longer-tenured
counterparts, Millennials, worldwide, have enjoyed the most mentoring opportunities. Just about half (49 percent)of the leaders from this generation already have had a formal mentor, as compared to only 40 percent of Gen X and
39 percent of Baby Boomer leaders.
4. Mentoring is gender neutral to a point. in Singapore, just as many men and women have had mentors (42percent and 54 percent, respectively) and have mentored others (50 percent and 57 percent, respectively). Amongleaders in higher-level and senior-executive roles across the globe, more women have had mentors than men,
indicating that this is a critical experience for women to advance their careers.
5. Not all senior leaders are mentoring. Although nearly half (47 percent) of senior leaders, worldwide, have had
mentors, a large portion are not passing on their experience or knowledge to junior members in their organizations.
Approximately one-third (33 percent) of senior leaders across the globe reported they have not formally mentored
anyone.
6. Few organizations offer formal mentoring for their leaders. In Singapore, only about one in threeorganizations (36 percent) provide formal mentoring.
7. More financially successful organizations offer mentoring. Globally, 54 percent of organizations in the top
third for financial performance have formalized mentoring programs, compared to only 33 percent of organizationsin the bottom third.

Broader Knowledge Networks
When designed to cross organizational boundaries, mentoring programs can facilitate an exchange of knowledge andexperience that informs younger employees. These programs also put mentors in touch with other parts of theorganization, elevating knowledge transfer between disparate sections. In fact, organizations that encourage mentoring
are already benefitting more widely from these guided interactions. Across the more than 25,000 leaders in our global
study, those from organizations with formal mentoring programs were 1.7 times more likely to feel well prepared for
capturing organizational knowledge before it’s lost than were leaders from organizations without formal mentoring.

WHERE TO START•HOW TO EXCEL + DIFFERENTIATE

Encourage formal and informal mentoring. Although•formal mentoring programs should establish and foster
guided connections and interactions between juniorand senior leaders, it’s also valuable to encourage
leaders and non-leaders to seek informal mentorships,
especially in the reverse with senior leaders seeking out
their junior colleagues to gain new perspectives.
•

far in connecting and establishing mentorships. Foster
peer learning by establishing mentoring networks, so thatwhen there isn’t formal guidance on a specific questionor need, leaders can seek the help and support of others
throughout the organization.
•

Develop mentoring contracts. Mentoring is a valuable

Make mentoring a retention strategy. Leverage
mentoring connections to foster retention. Be purposefulabout matching mentors to junior leaders who are at
greater risk of turnover.

investment of a leader’s time to share knowledge andexperience. Provide mentors and their charges with
examples of how to clearly communicate expectations
for the mentoring relationship, and also set guidelines inadvance for the mentorship.

© Development Dimensions International, Inc., The Conference
Board Inc., EYGM Limited, 2018. All rights reserved.

Build mentoring networks. Organizations can go only so

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Global Leadership Forecast 2018

Collective Leadership
Leading for Value Across Organizational Boundaries
In the 21st century, operating environments and models will become increasingly complex across new geographies andproduct/service lines with shorter half-lives than in the past. Navigating this complexity will require leaders to work
together more seamlessly across boundaries within and—with greater frequency these days—outside (for example withpartners and alliances) the organization. Collaboration is fast becoming a premium capability. In Global Leadership
Forecast 2018 we’ve identified what organizations with strong collective leadership have in common. Their leaders work
together effectively, create value horizontally, form multidisciplinary teams, and constantly bring diverse perspectives
together to work on their toughest issues. These organizations display strong—even turbocharged—confidence in theirability to conquer many of the challenges facing the business world today. Of course, collective leadership is not always
appropriate; there are times when more directive leadership is required.

> Leader Capability to Meet Business Challenges in High Versus Low Collective Leadership Organizations© Development Dimensions International, Inc., The Conference
Board Inc., EYGM Limited, 2018. All rights reserved.

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Global Leadership Forecast 2018

What Is the Impact of Collective Leadership?
Organizations with strong collective leadership (see figure at left) make better-informed decisions. They use data to
guide their decision making, and they excel at bringing in multiple perspectives from across the organization. Collective
leadership organizations are also more confident in responding to the competitive environment and acting on customer
needs. The collaboration process enables them to bring a breadth of insight and experience, which, in turn, improves the
rigor of debate.

Is Collective Leadership Always the Answer?
Globally, collective leadership organizations are found to have less of an advantage for acting decisively or effectively
navigating complexity, chaos, or ambiguity.
When the environment demands decisive action, companies need to shift from collective to directive leadership. Thisrequires adaptive leaders who can read the situation and use authority when required.

Collective Leadership Organizations Develop Stronger, More Engaged LeadersFinding the right leaders and building bench strength poses an increasingly daunting challenge in today’s businessworld. Asked what keeps them awake at night, CEOs frequently tell us: “Do I have the leaders I need to deliver our
strategy?”
We found collective leadership is equated with:• Five times higher likelihood of a strong leader bench (50 percent versus 7 percent).
• Half the rate of leaders at high risk of leaving (7 percent versus 16 percent).
• A higher rate of “definitely engaged” leaders (80 percent versus 52 percent).
The global data shows that constant learning is in the DNA of collective leadership organizations. Leaders give more
feedback to each other, as well as seek it more often. There’s a culture of learning that cuts across boundaries as leaders
work together toward a common cause: to develop each other as they go.
This translates to engagement and commitment. Leaders bring more energy and find a greater sense of purpose in theirroles (twice the levels of other organizations). They’re part of a wider team, which raises their engagement and reduces
their desire to leave by 10 percent versus organizations that don’t have collective leadership.

So, What Underpins Collective Leadership?
Collective leadership cultures are safe. Across the globe, people in collective leadership cultures feel safer to bring up
tough issues—by more than twice the levels within the other organizations. Psychological safety is a main feature ofpeople’s ability to work collectively and collaboratively. People are unafraid to admit a mistake, ask a question, or offer a
new idea, confident that they won’t be embarrassed or punished.
Development becomes a team sport. Leaders in collective leadership organizations face challenging conversations
and get more opportunities to provide feedback to senior leaders. They are more likely to prioritize creating chances fordevelopment and advancement for all.
Experiential practices support collective leadership. Our global data reveals organizations that score high incollective leadership use experiential learning to develop leaders. They’re three times more likely to adopt
coaching/mentoring for their leaders and five times more likely to use stretch assignments to build critical skills and to
reinforce the culture.
WHERE TO START•HOW TO EXCEL + DIFFERENTIATECreate leadership teams that cut across boundaries and•become models of collective leadership. Give them real
challenges to get the experience of working collectively.
•

the complexity that can undermine the benefits fromcollaborative leadership/culture.

Build skills that enable leaders to work collectively. Work•on game-changers like hyper-collaboration, inspiringothers, and leading in a virtual world.
•Make your leaders aware of what it takes to establish asafe environment. Do they welcome divergent views? Do•

Deepen empathy for the enterprise. Can all of yourleaders “stand in the shoes” of their peers? Do they
understand the importance of making decisions that go
beyond the interest of their function?

Accelerate team performance by helping members
understand styles, leveraging differences to theiradvantage.

•

Give leaders skin in the collective game. Reinforce,recognize, and reward collective leadership behaviors
through formal and informal incentives.

•© Development Dimensions International, Inc., The Conference
Board Inc., EYGM Limited, 2018. All rights reserved.

Build teaming capability at scale. Support the effective
design and development of teams across theorganization.

they understand that getting it wrong is an opportunity tolearn?
•

Map out the leadership capabilities required to manage

41

Create a purpose-driven organization where all leaders
and their teams drive towards common goals.

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Global Leadership Forecast 2018

It’s Time for Teamsin Leadership
The Power of a Shared Leader Perspective
Mounting pressures—complexity of work such that no one person has all the knowledge needed to solve problems,trends toward multidisciplinary work groups, and the rise of agile project management approaches—are renewing
attention on the unique and critical value of team-based work. Our research shows that these expectations aren’t limited
to individual contributors, but are also shaping the future of leadership. Based on data from more than 2,500 HR
professionals, three of the top six skills viewed as most critical within three years are closely associated with teameffectiveness:• “360-degree thinking” to act on input coming from multiple sources and perspectives.
• “Hyper-collaboration” requiring leaders to work cooperatively with others.
• “Leading virtual and remote teams.”
Collectively, these forces raise the stakes for leaders’ willingness to work as a team, and for companies to respond in kindby enabling a culture of shared leadership.

> How Senior Leadership Teams Are Stronger with a Shared Perspective© Development Dimensions International, Inc., The Conference
Board Inc., EYGM Limited, 2018. All rights reserved.

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Global Leadership Forecast 2018

True Leadership Teams: Still a Rarity
For many organizations, shared leadership is an aspiration, not yet a reality. In Singapore about half (52 percent) of theleaders feel either that they and their peers are engaged in mutual influence and shared sense-making, or that leaders
truly collaborate to enhance the company’s effectiveness (57 percent).
Other signs of cooperative leadership are even weaker. For example, only 4 percent of Singapore companies extensively
employ coaching from peer leaders as a learning method. Overall, many companies show questionable readiness toadopt and take advantage of a team concept for their leaders.

The Risks of Top-Level Misalignment
It’s important to understand the consequences of a talent approach that doesn’t build commonality across leadershipteams and that fails to see leaders as a group needing to be unified by common mindsets and mental models guiding
their decisions. At the senior-most company ranks, these risks are particularly severe: They can lead to entire business
units drifting away from a core strategy and senior leaders who cascade a discrepant set of operating and leadershipprinciples through their entire reporting structure.
In this research, we looked across data from multiple members of more than 60 senior leadership teams across the globe(C-Suite and executive VP-level leaders within the same company) to gauge the impact on leadership and businessoutcomes of leaders with widely varying responses. We found three areas where a lack of senior team calibration—as
shown by more variation across leader responses—was most damaging:• Energy and development passion: Vigor and energy on the job; looking for opportunities every day to develop
employees. Organizations suffer when senior leaders differ in their willingness to continually push themselves andothers to grow.
• Future-focused leader skills: Identifying and developing future talent, leading through digitization (that is,leveraging technology to manage the workforce more effectively). Companies where senior leaders are inconsistentin such skills see worse talent and business outcomes.
• Views on company culture: Degree to which the organization is sluggish or agile, whether the company focuses
more on current challenges or future vision. When senior leaders aren’t well-grounded on where the company stands
now (or where it needs to head) on these key cultural factors, positive outcomes are much rarer.
Globally, organizations with well-calibrated senior leadership teams have higher bench strength (ability to immediately
and confidently fill critical leadership roles). They have leaders who react more decisively to change and are better able
to act on shifting customer needs and perspectives. These effects of a shared leadership mindset are shown in thegraphic at left.

Alignment Isn’t Constant Agreement
This research isn’t about seeking full agreement and a lack of healthy debate among leadership teams. Some forms oftension certainly can be functional*. However, a lack of seni0r leader alignment on key cornerstones of passion, talent
growth, and cultural readiness for the future notably weakens a company’s ability to build a robust leadership pipeline
and to respond adeptly and with agility to market and customer challenges.
* Leonard, O., Wiita, N., & Milane, C. (2017, September 18), The Best Senior Teams Thrive on Disagreement, Harvard Business Review.

WHERE TO START•HOW TO EXCEL + DIFFERENTIATE

Build shared mental models about leadership. Create•and socialize shared frameworks for roles andexpectations.
•perspective are valuable; differences in fundamental
views of oneself or key business challenges are much
more destructive for talent and agility outcomes.

Hire and promote for team profiles. Seek valid, reliable•data about leader personalities and skills to guidedecisions about team composition.
••

Develop leaders in cohorts. Cohort-based developmentbuilds commonality in how leaders approach their roles
as employee growth champions and advocates, and intheir skills to identify talent and leverage technology tomanage the workforce, providing a safe forum for open
discussion of the company’s culture.

Address misalignment in critical facets early. Don’t let
misalignment in passion, skills, and culture fester until they
appear in their most damaging form at senior levels.

•

Use objective diagnostics to discern and act on teamlevel patterns and dynamics. Go beyond standard org
chart or “heat map” views for dynamic, interactive viewsof how leaders will work together as a team.

Experiment with agile methodologies. Agile project
management, once solely used for technology
organizations, deeply incorporates and can build
momentum for team-based approaches.

•

Don’t confuse alignment with agreement. Differences inTarget unifying purpose through team chartering. Arm
leaders with techniques to ground new teams in acommon vision.

© Development Dimensions International, Inc., The Conference
Board Inc., EYGM Limited, 2018. All rights reserved.

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Global Leadership Forecast 2018

Adjusted for Disruption
Top Drivers of Organizational Success ThroughComplexity and Change
Exponential technology and market change are motivating organizations and their leaders to continually rethink,redesign, refocus, and readjust. Within this complex environment, what might have made businesses successful in thepast can’t necessarily be counted on for the future. As a result, more organizations are looking to optimize theircapability to sense customer and market needs, shift stakeholder mindsets, and adjust their activities. Our global
research indicates that organizations rated as more agile by their leaders differentiate themselves in key leadership
practices that drive more informed, frequent adjustments. Paired with leader capability to sense and act on neededchanges, these companies are better prepared to anticipate trends, respond to competitive forces, and adjust to changing
customer needs.

> Organizational Practices that Drive Organizational Agility—and Better Shift-Making© Development Dimensions International, Inc., The Conference
Board Inc., EYGM Limited, 2018. All rights reserved.

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Global Leadership Forecast 2018

Sense, Act, Shift, Repeat> The Impact of Organizational Focus on
Internal Customers

Organizational agility requires understanding and anticipationof how the market environment will change, so that its leaders
can maneuver successfully and rapidly. Our research showsthat more-agile organizations have leaders who are better
positioned to meet this challenge. Globally, their leaders are
3.2 times more prepared to anticipate and react to the natureand speed of change, and 1.2 times more capable ofresponding to the competitive environment.
These organizations enable practices that improve theirleaders’ capability to sense and respond to change (see figure
at left). Specifically, they excel in three areas:• Informing decisions through data and analytics.
More-agile organizations leverage data and analytics tofuel their sensing capability, with 91 percent of theirleaders indicating that they’re prepared to use data to
guide business decisions. This contrasts to only 76
percent at low-agility organizations. They were also 1.7
times more likely to leverage data to make strategic
talent decisions.
• Integrating multiple and diverse perspectives todrive successful change efforts. Leaders in more-agileorganizations are 2 times more likely than their lowagility counterparts to collaborate and rely on diverse
perspectives to create new solutions and opportunities,
and 2 times more likely to use multiple perspectives togauge success.
• Encouraging rapid development of new and improved capabilities. Twice as many leaders at more-agileorganizations indicated that failure is embraced or rewarded in pursuit of innovative or different approaches (56versus 21 percent, respectively).

Adjusted for Continuous Leader Improvement
You can’t consistently anticipate how to succeed with your customers without understanding their needs and growing
with them. Our research on over 2,400 organizations across the globe found that those that excel in their focus onexternal customers—who are more agile and more likely to sense, act, and shift around those needs—have been just as
effective with their internal customers. As shown in the figure above, their efforts pay off in leadership outcomes thatwill help ensure continued success as they readjust efforts.

WHERE TO START•HOW TO EXCEL + DIFFERENTIATE

Drive first for speed. Encourage leaders to seek rapid•

deployment and feedback for new prototypes so thatthey gather the information needed to quickly makedecisions and adjust.
•

improved capabilities requires quick communication anddecision making, which can be enabled by a smallergroup. Organizations that ranked highest in agility were
smaller in size and less likely to have grown in complexity
due to mergers and acquisitions.

Identify data blind spots. Inventory data sources anddetermine if there are gaps in the information needed tosense for and make decisions.

••

Aim to “adjust,” not “adapt.” Organizations that are more
successful have adopted a mindset of tinkering andadjusting. Adapting generally implies change that
happens over time, whereas adjusting can beinstantaneous.

Create cross-functional, shared goals. Set common goals
across different parts of your organization to encourageinterdepartmental cooperation and collaboration. This
will help identify and remove information silos and barriers
that can impede change efforts.

© Development Dimensions International, Inc., The Conference
Board Inc., EYGM Limited, 2018. All rights reserved.

Think big, act small. Rapid deployment of new and45

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Global Leadership Forecast 2018

No Engaged Workforce
Without Engaged Leaders
To Raise Leader Engagement,
We Need to Raise Up Leaders
The direct link between engagement and bottom-line results is clear to the leaders we surveyed. When asked how they
will drive better business performance, Singapore respondents said they would focus on enhancing organizational talent(81 percent), building a high-performance culture (83 percent), and engaging employees (79 percent). In aggregate, 94
percent of leaders told us they are engaged, and 90 percent want to stay on with their organization to make an impact.
These findings are encouraging, as leaders continue to wield the greatest single impact on workplace engagement. But
the findings, summarized in the figure below, also reveal important areas where they need support—particularly incareer development, a key driver of employee engagement. The fact that 52 percent of leaders believe they will need tomove on to advance their career is a wake-up call.
> Organizational Practices that Drive Organizational Agility—and Better Shift-Making in Singapore© Development Dimensions International, Inc., The Conference
Board Inc., EYGM Limited, 2018. All rights reserved.

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Global Leadership Forecast 2018

HR professionals in Singapore indicated that only 71 percent of the leadership development programs they supervised
were connected to business priorities. Only 29 percent of HR leaders report that their leaders have high-quality, effective
development plans, while only 43 percent report that their leaders have regular reviews of that plan with their manager
and only 57 percent deliver sequenced leadership development programs – versus independent events. No wonder many
are unclear about their leadership path and feel they must leave the organization if they are to advance! In Singapore,intent to leave has increased for 20 percent of respondents, but decreased for 29 percent, with 51 percent unchanged. HR
responses revealed that attrition for high potentials in Singapore was lower (11 percent) than that for all other leaders (11percent). Globally, millennial leaders are slightly more inclined to leave than leaders in other generations (16 percent
compared to 15 percent for Generation X and 13 percent for Baby Boomers).

To Raise Employee Engagement Levels, HR Needs to Step Up
HR needs to do a better job of supporting these leaders because disengagement is infectious. And a toxic culture cantake years to rebuild. Engagement—and in turn, retention—doesn’t happen by accident. It takes concertedorganizational effort, a motivated leader, and employees who take responsibility for their own engagement. Globally,
there is a link between collaborative cultures and higher retention.
Leaders at all levels need support. A full 54 percent of leaders in Singapore have never had a mentor (though 52 percent
mentor others) and, perhaps more disturbing in a global work world, 54 percent of Singapore leaders have never had aninternational assignment.
Here’s good news: When rating their eﬀectiveness in using inspiration (motivating increased employee energy andeﬀort) and empathy (deepening relationships with others by perceiving and acting on their emotions), most leaders in
Singapore said they were at least moderately eﬀective in using both skills (93 percent and 92 percent, respectively),
which are hallmarks of an engaging leader. Critically, they want to lead—67 percent see it as a leader’s role as custodianof the organization’s purpose to a great or very great extent. About three-quarters (72 percent) of these leaders support
critical activities aligned with purpose. Well over half (71 percent) of the Singapore companies have articulated vision,
mission, and purpose statements; incidentally, 71 percent have an employee value proposition. Here, leaders can play a
crucial role in making the connection between the job an employee does and the organization’s vision, mission, andpurpose—a significant engagement driver.
The findings in this study corroborate engagement-related research at The Conference Board*. The 12 behaviors
mastered by highly engaging leaders include:
Provides a strong sense of meaning and direction by:
1. Developing a compelling vision of what people canaccomplish.
2. Communicating in a way that brings people along.
3. Setting a clear strategic direction for direct reports.
Brings out collective brilliance by:
4. Building trust and acting with integrity.
5. Challenging the status quo and inspiring creativity.
6. Fostering a culture of collaboration.

Builds a high-performance environment by:
7. Setting high standards.
8. Creating a sense of urgency.
9. Empowering employees.
Unlocks employees’ full potential by:
10. Building relationships one person at a time.
11. Providing clear and consistent rewards/recognition.
12. Driving development and growth.

* Ray, R.L., Hyland, P., Pressman, A., Dye, D.A., & Kaplan, J. (2016, February), DNA of Engagement: How Organizations Build and Sustain
Highly Engaging Leaders, New York, The Conference Board, https://www.conference-board.org

WHERE TO START•HOW TO EXCEL + DIFFERENTIATE

Build engaging leaders. Forge a robust leadership•development program that will develop, retain, andempower leaders at all levels.
•

executive leaders becoming champions for change. Like
everything else, the tone starts at the top.

Ensure that the basics are in place: job descriptions,•behavioral anchors, custom development plans, ondemand and formal training programs, experiential
learning opportunities, and continuous feedback.
•Embed messages about the business case forengagement into all communications. Monitor progressand celebrate successful milestones.

•

Align strategic projects with leadership development
efforts to ensure that leaders are exposed early on to

Leverage your engaged leaders by asking them tomentor other leaders, participate in development
initiatives, and coach their peers.

real-world challenges.
•

Build an engaging culture. Start with the senior-most•Communicate the path for leaders as well as the skills tomaster along the way. Set up a mentoring program andReward and celebrate your highly engaging leaders;
they are the factory for your leadership cadre.

teach managers how to coach so that their nowenhanced engagement is contagious.

© Development Dimensions International, Inc., The Conference
Board Inc., EYGM Limited, 2018. All rights reserved.

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Global Leadership Forecast 2018

HR’s New Role
Are They Up to the Challenge?
In Global Leadership Forecast 2014|2015, we put forth the concept of a new role for HR, moving from the overused termof “partner” to “anticipator.” Only a small number of HR professionals, worldwide, considered themselves Anticipators.
Even fewer leaders thought their HR colleagues fell into this category. Not more than six months after the release of theForecast, Harvard Business Review devoted an entire issue to the role of HR. The provocative title of the lead article?
“Why We Love to Hate HR and What HR Can Do About It.”* The opening salvo of this piece summarizes the state of
HR: Recent complaints about the HR function have touched a nerve in a large, sympathetic audience. The most vocal
critics say that HR managers focus too much on “administrivia” and lack vision and strategic insight. Let’s take a deeper
dive into HR’s changing and evidence-based actions to build their competence and credibility.
> Shifting Perceptions of HR’s Role over the Past Three Years in Singapore© Development Dimensions International, Inc., The Conference
Board Inc., EYGM Limited, 2018. All rights reserved.

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Global Leadership Forecast 2018

HR Professionals: A New Role

> Eight Practices that Anticipators Do More
Effectively Than Partners

We defined three categories for HR professionals:• Reactor: Sets and ensures compliance with policies;
responds to business needs; installs basic initiatives tomanage talent.
• Partner: Works toward mutual goals with line managers;
shares information with the business about talent issue
gaps; provides HR solutions.
• Anticipator: Uses analytics to forecast talent needs;
provides insights and solutions to ensure high-quality
supply of talent; links talent planning to business planning.
Every HR professional must perform some tasks in each role.
However, while over the past decade HR professionals havefocused on their function’s operating models, policies, andsystems, they now must refocus on how to manage talentstrategically. HR must make the transition to the Anticipator’srole, and that hasn’t happened.
Fewer than one in five Singapore HR professionals (19 percent)consider themselves Anticipators, which is slightly higher thanthose who consider themselves to be Reactors (10 percent). And
business leaders are less likely to place HR professionals in the
Anticipator role. In 2018, Singapore business leaders were 4.2
times more likely as HR professionals to use the Reactor label.

Making a Difference
So how can HR professionals make progress?
Based on data from over 2,400 organizations across the globe, we looked for talent practices that differentiate the three
categories of HR professionals. While dozens of practices set Reactors apart from Anticipators and Partners combined,
we wanted to focus on those practices that statistically separate Partners from Anticipators. These are shown in the
figure above.
Too often there’s a weak link between strategic and HR planning. In fact, only 28 percent of global HR respondents feelthat this connection is tight and starts early in the planning process. Throughout Global Leadership Forecast 2018, we’vehighlighted the importance of predictive analytics, which are the Anticipator’s lifeblood. And, for the first time, thetechnology is in place to better advance analytics. Analytics are essential to maximizing your investments toward
improving leadership quality and supply.
* Capelli, P. (2015, July), Why We Love to Hate HR and What HR Can Do About It, Harvard Business Review, www.hbr.org/2015/07/why-welove-to-hate-hr-and-what-hr-can-do-about-it

WHERE TO START•••HOW TO EXCEL + DIFFERENTIATETake a step back and gauge. Which of the three roles•

best reflects HR in your organization? Don’t forget to seek
input from line managers.

Ensure that you’re building stronger predictive analytic
team capability.

•

Consider more rotation of respected line leaders within

Move toward the Anticipator role by improving HR capability

and out of the HR function.

in the eight evidence-based practices described in the
figure.

•Ensure that HR is well represented in your company’s•business value through talent. They own this imperative.

strategic planning process.
•Deploy smart HR technologies to enable leadershipeffectiveness while freeing up HR professionals’ time toconcentrate on the more value-added tasks their businesses
require.

Step up to greater accountability by providing businessleaders with the support and tools they need to bolster
engagement, employees’ sense of purpose, and growth.

© Development Dimensions International, Inc., The Conference
Board Inc., EYGM Limited, 2018. All rights reserved.

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Global Leadership Forecast 2018

HR Under Pressure
Falling Behind in the Race to Transform
The future of work is not tomorrow. It is now, and the implications for our workforces are profound. New career paths,
evolving organizational structures and business models, analytics, and digital disruption are trends every HR
professional faces. Never has the role of HR leadership been more important in making this transformation happen.
Business leaders no longer need to be convinced how important talent is. In a recent article, “The CEO’s Guide toCompeting Through HR,”* the authors conclude that HR needs to step out of its traditional silo and embrace a strategicrole, using talent to drive value rather than just responding passively to the needs of the business. While HR leadershipshould be in an enviable position, in reality it’s losing the race. Their organizations are changing faster than they are,putting them even farther behind. We’ve devoted two findings to HR leadership. The section “HR’s New Role: Are They
Up to the Challenge?” identifies the evidence-based practices that drive better HR performance. Here, we address thechanges HR leaders are experiencing and how prepared they are to meet key workplace challenges relative to leaders inother roles.
> How Singapore HR Leaders’ Jobs and Attitudes Have Changed over the Past Three Years© Development Dimensions International, Inc., The Conference
Board Inc., EYGM Limited, 2018. All rights reserved.

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Global Leadership Forecast 2018

HR in the Pressure Cooker> HR Leaders Versus Other Leaders on Key
Challenges

For Singapore, 31 HR professionals completed the HRspecific version of Global Leadership Forecast 2018, alongwith 145 leaders who responded to the leader version.
Additionally, ten percent of the leader population were in
HR, giving us another rich source of data.
We started by asking HR professionals how their jobs andattitudes have changed over the past three years (seefigure at left).
HR professionals reported a considerable increase forevery experience or challenge. In fact, only two items
rated relatively low: intention to leave current job andworking across countries/culture. Most notable, by far, isthe impact of digital disruption on the HR role in theform of an increased need to up their game in applying
both HR technology (80 percent) and analytic skills (75percent). Pressure to demonstrate financial impact, also
requiring keen analytic skills, was on the rise at 80
percent. Among the top 3 increases was the need to
become a trusted senior advisor with 80 percent
reporting increased pressures. As we saw in the section“HR’s New Role,” perceiving a need to change is far
different than making one. For HR professionals, 5
percent are thinking more about leaving theirorganization. However, on a more positive note, 80
percent felt more engaged.

The graphic above is based on the global sample of HR leaders’ responses to the leader survey. They were asked to rate
how well prepared they felt for each of seven items characterizing the ever-changing work environment (volatility,
uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity). The number depicted in the graphic represents the difference between the“very effective” responses of leaders who are in an HR role versus all other leaders. In every case, HR leaders felt lessprepared than their peers in other leadership roles. These responses are concerning. The work world is experiencing
considerable upheaval, yet only one in five global HR leaders, on average, felt very prepared to handle the challenges on
the graphic.
Worse yet, the biggest differences are in their perceived effectiveness to operate in a digital environment and use
analytics, despite the increased pressure they’re feeling to do so. For example, more than 37 percent of leaders worldwide
felt very prepared for a digital workplace. Not an impressive number. By comparison, only 16 percent of HR leaders felt
the same way.
Consider this: The digital age will exert a more profound impact on our workforce in about one-tenth of the time of any
other massive economic shift. Yet, those HR leaders who should be taking charge to prepare tomorrow’s leaders are
farther behind than those they’ll need to support.
* Bafars, F., Ellsworth, D., & Gandhi, N. (2017, July), The CEO’s Guide to Competing Through HR, McKinsey Quarterly.

WHERE TO START•HOW TO EXCEL + DIFFERENTIATE

Focus on building capability in business acumen,
advanced analytics, and new HR technologies. Elsewhere•in this report, you’ll see that the areas where HR leaders
are feeling pressured correspond to areas where theirperformance is perceived to be lacking.
•As “owners” of leadership development, one of HR’s chiefroles is to prepare leaders for digital transformation. Yet,HR leaders are less prepared than leaders in otherfunctions. Building HR’s digital leadership skills is essential
not only to develop others, but also to manage
impending radical changes in HR technologies.

We suspect that HR leaders may be under-investing intheir own learning as they strive to meet the growing•

learning needs of leaders in other functions. In reality, HR
should be first in line for increased resources and in acontinual learning mode.

HR professionals often label themselves as the enablers oftalent development, while line managers are the real
owners. HR leaders need to take primary ownership for
ensuring that their organizations have the talent in place
to meet current and future business challenges.

© Development Dimensions International, Inc., The Conference
Board Inc., EYGM Limited, 2018. All rights reserved.

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Global Leadership Forecast 2018

People Analytics
Reversal of Fortunes
Pressure on the HR function to adopt and excel in people analytics—defined as “the systematic identification andqualification of the people drivers of business outcomes, with the purpose of making better decisions”*—has been
intense for several years. Analytics are viewed as a prime route to greater strategic influence, and the thirst for deeper
analytics know-how has spawned a five-fold spike in interest over the past five years. Hundreds of articles have been
written in HR publications, dozens of conferences dedicated, and entire academic programs in HR analytics offered atuniversities such as Cornell, Texas A&M, and New York University. With this steady drumbeat of exhortation andenergy, surely HR has grown its proficiency in analytics methods since Global Leadership Forecast 2014|2015, right? This
current Forecast took a detailed view of analytics progress and practices across more than 2,400 global organizations to
ask: What’s the status? What’s emerging? and What works to drive HR—and the enterprise—forward?
The figure below presents the state of people analytics practices. The top two rows [] present the percent ofSingapore organizations succeeding in each analytics practice along with the associated three-year success trend. The
bottom two rows [] show the impact of each analytics practice in terms of an organization’s leader bench strengthand financial performance based on the global data set of over 2,400 companies.
> People Analytics Practices: Success, Trends, and Impact© Development Dimensions International, Inc., The Conference
Board Inc., EYGM Limited, 2018. All rights reserved.

52

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Global Leadership Forecast 2018

A Stunning Regression
Instead of an expected increase in analytics effectiveness, we found that success rates declined over the past three years
for most analytics we compared (shown in the figure at left). Though companies attempted analytics more often than in
2014, these efforts were more likely to fail than to succeed.
These struggles were common for more traditional types of analytics (internal benchmarking and gathering efficiency,
reactions, or results metrics). On average, only 25 percent of Singapore companies were succeeding in these. The picture
is even more bleak for emerging forms of analytics, such as creating growth-centric leadership planning models, using“what if” scenarios to forecast future talent needs, and data visualization and storytelling to compel the audience. On
average, only 14 percent of Singapore organizations succeed here.
To put these declines in context, it’s important to gauge whether this is a true backward step in effectiveness or a higher
standard for success. Our data shows that it’s likely a case of the analytics bar rising faster than HR can leap over it.
Despite low success rates, 75 percent of HR professionals in Singapore reported an increase in their analytics skills anddata-driven decision making. Yet, this clearly isn’t enough to keep pace.

Highest-Impact Analytics Practices
Though success rates are similar across analytics types, distinctions between them become clearer when linking toleadership and business outcomes. By doing so, we can show which forms of effective analytics outperform the others.
The graphic at left shows the link between various types of analytics and two critical outcomes: bench strength (theability to rapidly fill critical roles with qualified internal candidates) and a financial composite of revenue growth,
operating margin, EBITDA, and return on equity.
Every type of analytics showed a notable link with one or both outcomes, led by benchmarking internally, creating
leadership-planning models, and using data visualization/storytelling techniques. On average, companies excelling inthese analytics were 6.5 times more likely to have high bench strength and 3.1 times more likely to outperform peers
financially.

It’s Not Just About the Numbers
It’s easy to make the mistake that analytics are just about the numbers. But analytics also drive and exemplify objectivity
and fairness. Companies strong in people analytics have more gender diversity in leadership (especially high-potential
pools), a stronger culture of promotion from within, and higher leader success rates.
The bottom line: More analytical practices are more diverse practices, and they reinforce strong “grow your own” cultures.
When analytics are in place, so are objective decision-making tools, systematic processes, and a bias-free, up-to-date status of
talent.

Analytics as Accelerator
Analytics accelerate HR professionals deploying them: Across the globe, those succeeding with advanced analytics are 6.3
times more likely to have new advancement opportunities and are 3.6 times more likely to have a stronger reputation withsenior business leaders.
And analytics accelerate talent practices, making good ones even better. Companies that create leadership planningmodels, gather results metrics, and are adept at data visualization and storytelling see a higher return on their talent
investments than those that neglect or struggle with these practices.
* van den Heuvel, S., & Bondarouk, T. (2017), The Rise (and Fall?) of HR Analytics: A Study Into the Future Application, Value, Structure, andSystem Support, Journal of Organizational Effectiveness, 4, 157–178.

WHERE TO STARTHOW TO EXCEL + DIFFERENTIATE•

Confirm business questions. Analytics that fail to start withbusiness (not just HR) questions will be challenging to execute
and, often, wholly unpersuasive to stakeholders.

•

Build skills in visualization and storytelling. These are powerfulways to communicate data; such messages are morememorable and persuasive than numbers or text.

•

Get your data house in order. Spend time planning your data
foundation to avoid misinformed or impossible analytics.

••

Align effort toward highest-impact methods. Internalbenchmarking, leadership planning, andvisualization/storytelling had the strongest outcome links in
our research.

Recognize analytics as change management. Numbers
mean nothing if they don’t drive action; pair analytics withinteractive data views to build engagement about apractical path forward.

•

Map talent scenarios to business strategies. Sophisticated,
high-impact workforce planning matches talent needs togrowth projections, ensuring that talent is where it’s needed
and when.

•

Build internal and external networks. Seek partnerships with
data-minded individuals across functions, local interest
groups, and internal analytics centers of excellence.

•

Staff for data savvy. Analytics is a team sport; develop andhire not just for abilities in data science, but also businessacumen, visualization, and ethics.

•

Adopt proven methods such as key driver analysis, text
analytics, survival analysis, decision trees, and scenario
planning.

© Development Dimensions International, Inc., The Conference
Board Inc., EYGM Limited, 2018. All rights reserved.

53

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Global Leadership Forecast 2018

Leadership Megatrends and Payoffs
The research summarized in this report shows the powerful and pervasive—yet rarely fulfilled—impact of leadership
practices on organizations striving to meet their business challenges, now and in the future. We’ve delved into overtwo dozen findings focused on how these enterprise-level objectives are achieved. Each finding includes precise,practical recommendations for learning from top-performing companies and for listening to and maximizing thepotential of leaders themselves. Now, it’s time to take a step back: first, to see the overarching trends emerging fromthe research as consistent guiding principles flowing broadly into all aspects of leader talent management; andsecond, for an integrated look at the links between practices and payoffs as fuel for assembling a comprehensive
leadership strategy.

Six Leadership Megatrends from Global Leadership
Forecast 2018
Digital Reshapes the Workforce: Across nearly every facet of the research, we saw the influence of digital
readiness. Digitally advanced organizations and leaders are already outperforming their less technologicallysavvy peers, who risk being left behind, permanently.
Data’s Power Extends Beyond the Numbers: We expected to see data as an increasingly valuable commodity
for people and business decisions. But we didn’t anticipate the heavy influence data and analytics have on
business’ human side: inclusivity, agility, and fairness.
Culture Looms Crucial: Leadership strategies will fail without solid cultural cornerstones—clearly grasped andenlivened purpose, peer coaching, experimentation, psychological safety, and fully incorporated, diverse
gender and generational views.
DIY Is DOA: Leaders who stand (and learn) alone—not given access to or eschewing coaching from peers andmentors, and failing to adopt a collective, shared, and team-centric view of leadership—may survive in theworkplace, but they surely won’t thrive.
The Potential Pool Swells to a Lake: Organizations taking a broad view of potential—expanding their reach toactivate and accelerate leadership talent—prove more financially successful, feature stronger top leaders, andemploy more women at every leader level.
HR Navigates a Challenging Road Ahead: HR’s reputation as an Anticipator has taken a hit along with its
declining rates of analytics success. Also, HR’s own digital readiness is lacking. If this isn’t addressed soon,
HR’s ability to drive digital advancement will be crippled.

Leadership Practices Scoreboard
Across 2,400+ organizations, which practices have the strongest payoffs for leadership and financial performance?
The table on the facing page shows 34 leadership practices across four categories. The percentage of organizations
using the practice is indicated along with the impact that each practice had on three outcomes from the research:
Program Quality (aggregate leader-rated quality of assessment, development, and performance management
programs); Bench Strength (supply of capable leaders for critical leadership roles within the next three years); andthe organization’s Financial Performance (composite of operating margin, EBITDA, revenue growth, and returnon equity).
Key
No circle = nominal impact© Development Dimensions International, Inc., The Conference
Board Inc., EYGM Limited, 2018. All rights reserved.

= moderate impact

54= strong impact

www.ddiworld.com/glf2018

Global Leadership Forecast 2018

Leadership Practices Scoreboard
Links to Outcomes Based on Global Data Set
Percentage of Singapore Organizations Using Each Practice
Program
Quality

Leadership PracticeBenchStrength

Financial
Performance

Percentage
Using

Talent Management
Leadership development programs begin with a diagnosis of leader strengths/weaknesses.

68%

Leadership competencies serve as the foundation for multiple leadership talent management
systems.

46%

Talent review processes have a reputation for being fair and objective.

73%

Competencies required for success in key leadership positions are clearly defined.

41%

Information from assessments and simulations is used to guide leader development plans.

55%

Information from assessments and simulations is used to make leadership hiring and promotion
decisions.

59%

Individual leadership initiatives, programs, and processes are well integrated and aligned to key
business priorities.

71%

Systematic processes (e.g., strategic talent planning) are used to identify the quantity and qualityof leadership required to drive future business success.

50%

We know the up-to-date status of our leadership talent capability across the organization.

77%

We use a formal process for identifying employees who could become global/multinational
leaders.

50%

We use formal programs to ensure smooth leadership transitions at all levels.

46%

Formal mentoring programs are available for leaders.

36%

Performance Management
We have a fair and transparent performance management system at all levels.

82%

Performance management discussions occur ongoing rather than just once a year.

59%

Performance management discussions include a heavy focus on personal development planning.

55%

Ratings have been eliminated from our performance management process.

18%

Development
Leaders practice and receive feedback on key skills with their managers.

57%

Leaders are offered a library or learning system from which they can choose on-demand courses.

33%

Leaders receive development personalized specifically for them rather than as part of a cohort.

33%

Leaders regularly review their development plan with their managers.

43%

Leadership development modules are positioned with leaders as a planned sequence rather thanas independent events.

57%

We have a dedicated learning experience manager (someone who designs and sequences
personalized, engaging learning for leaders).

33%

Our leaders have high-quality, effective development plans.

29%Managers who fail to develop their leaders receive negative consequences as a result.

29%

High Potential
High-potential leaders’ performance in developmental assignments is carefully evaluated.

70%

Developmental activity for high-potential leaders is targeted toward their specific development needs.

75%

Our process for identifying high potentials is unbiased and nonpolitical.

60%

We collect objective assessment data on high potentials’ capabilities, potential, and readiness.

65%

Managers are held accountable for supporting high-potential leaders.

65%

The process for identifying high potentials is consistent across the organization.

70%

We have a mentoring/coaching program specifically for high-potential leaders.

45%

High-potential leaders are told and aware of their special status.

40%

We measure the effectiveness of programs for developing high-potential leaders.

70%

The identities of leaders labeled as high-potential are well-known within the organization.

35%© Development Dimensions International, Inc., The Conference
Board Inc., EYGM Limited, 2018. All rights reserved.

55

www.ddiworld.com/glf2018

Appendix: Demographics
Organization Characteristics

Leader Characteristics

HR Benchmarks
We asked HR participants to provide general information about the makeup and turnover and success rates of theirleaders. The figure below provides median benchmarks from organizations across the globe. The bars represent thegeneral range of responses received from HR respondents (between the 10th and 90th percentiles); the green dots
indicate the average of all organizations; and the yellow stars indicate how leading organizations (represented by thosewith the highest leader quality and bench strength) responded on average.

About DDI
With 1,100 associates strong worldwide, we work side by side with clients to build a sustainable pipeline of leaders tomeet business needs—today and in the years ahead. Because, like you, we believe better leaders lead to a better future,
we have dedicated ourselves to the science and practice of leadership for nearly five decades. Our solutions draw fromour four areas of leadership expertise: Strategy | Selection | Development | Succession Management.
We’ve worked with clients to define and achieve great leadership at every level, from aspiring leaders all the way to the
C-Suite. Our promise remains constant: Together, we can co-create a solution that is unique to your organization andaimed squarely at meeting your business goals. To learn more about DDI, join us at www.ddiworld.com

About The Conference Board
Founded in 1916, The Conference Board is a global, independent business membership and research association working
in the public interest. Our agenda is simple: to help leaders navigate the biggest issues impacting business and better
serve society. We believe in innovative approaches that make you think—and act—differently. And everything we doreflects the input of our members and their real-world challenges.
We do this by delivering business insights. We connect senior executives across industries and geographies to shareideas, and our experts create fact-based research and consensus-driven policy statements to help leaders address theirmost important business issues.
Because we are independent, nonpartisan, and nonprofit, our work is trusted. If you learned it at The Conference Board,
you can count on it. To learn more about The Conference Board, visit us at conference-board.org

About EY’s People Advisory Services
EY’s People Advisory Services believes a better working world is helping our clients harness their people agenda—theright people, with the right capabilities, in the right place, for the right cost, doing the right things.
We work globally and collaborate to bring clients professional teams to address complex issues relating to organizationtransformation, end-to-end employee life cycles, effective talent deployment and mobility, gaining value from evolving
and virtual workforces, and the changing role of HR in support of business strategy. Our EY professionals ask better
questions and work with clients to create holistic, innovative answers that deliver quality results.

About the Global Authors
Evan Sinar, Ph.D., is DDI’s Chief Scientist and Vice President. He designs and executes analytics linking
leadership programs to business outcomes and produces actionable insights about talent trends and people
practices, including leading DDI’s Global Leadership Forecast and High-Resolution Leadership research
programs. He is a top influencer for analytics, data visualization, and people science, frequently authoringon these topics for major conferences and publications. His work has been featured in Chief Learning
Officer, Training Magazine, and numerous other publications. Evan holds a Ph.D. in industrial and organizational
psychology and is a Fellow of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology.
Richard S. Wellins, Ph.D., is a leading expert on teams and leadership. He recently completed a 35-year
career at DDI, where he was head of global research and marketing. He currently serves as a senior research
associate for HR.com, DDI, and EY. Rich received his Ph.D. from American University. He has authored six
books, including the recent Your First Leadership Job. He speaks at major conferences around the world andhas published more than 50 articles. His work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, CNBC, Fortune, andthe BBC.
Adam L. Canwell, a Partner, People Advisory Services, Ernst & Young and a global leader of EY’s leadershipoffering based in Melbourne, Australia. He has more than 20 years’ experience in providing people advisory
services to clients. He has delivered transformation programs across multiple product and service industries– working with FTSE 100 (or their equivalent) organizations. Adam has an MSc in coaching and consulting
for change from HEC at Oxford University and an M.A. (Oxon) Politics, Philosophy and Economics from
Oxford University.
Rebecca L. Ray, Ph.D., serves as the executive vice president, knowledge organization, for The Conference
Board. She oversees the research planning and dissemination process for all three practices areas (Corporate
Leadership, Economics and Business Development, and Human Capital) and is responsible for defining the
research agenda that drives the company’s business planning process. She is responsible for continuing
integration of The Conference Board’s research and engagement efforts. Rebecca is author of numerous
articles and books, including her coauthored works Measuring Leadership Development (McGraw-Hill) and Measuring
the Success of Employee Engagement (ATD).
Stephanie Neal, M.A., is a consultant in DDI’s Leadership Reach Center. She conducts research to explore
workplace and leadership trends, including topics focused on executive leadership and gender diversity.
Stephanie is the author of “Your Next CEO Should Be a Social CEO” and a coauthor of Ready-Now Leaders:
Cultivating Women in Leadership to Meet Tomorrow’s Business Challenges and Women as Mentors: Does She
or Doesn’t She? A Global Study of Businesswomen and Mentoring.
Amy Lui Abel, Ph.D., is managing director of Human Capital at The Conference Board. She leads research
efforts focusing on human capital analytics, leadership development, labor markets, strategic workforce
planning, talent management, diversity and inclusion, human resources, and employee engagement. Amy
has been published in People & Strategy Journal, The SAGE Handbook of Workplace Learning, Human
Resource Development Quarterly, and ATD’s TD magazine.
Amanda Popiela is a researcher for Human Capital at The Conference Board. She conducts research in avariety of areas, including talent management, employee engagement, and diversity & inclusion. Her recent
reports include Mental Health and Well-Being in the Workplace and Divergent Views/Common Ground: The
Leadership Perspectives of C-Suite and Millennial Leaders.

Joe Dettmann, Ph.D., a Partner/Principal, People Advisory Services, Ernst & Young LLP and a North
American leader of EY’s leadership offering. He has a Ph.D. in industrial/organizational psychology and has
spent his career as a human capital and talent management consultant. At EY, Joe has been instrumental in
the Future Work Now transformation offering and helps clients design for the future of work and optimize
their human capital by activating modern talent strategies. As part of that, he has been the architect of EY’s
Future of Work Readiness Index technology and has led the development of EY’s Digital Leadership offering.
Liz Collins, M.S., is a Senior Manager in People Advisory Services, Ernst & Young LLP. She has a Masters inorganizational psychology from Columbia University and has spent her career working with clients todevelop data supported workforce strategies in tandem with the client’s talent management programs,
people key risk programs, and organizational and leadership development activities. Liz works primarily
with Financial Services clients across Banking, Capital Markets and Insurance.
Louise Rolland is Executive Director, People Advisory Services, Ernst & Young. She came from academia,
and her work focuses on all aspects of workforce and talent strategy. As a labor demographer, she has led aninternationally focused research agenda to investigate the impact of demographic change and global labor
trends on business. She is a thought leader and pragmatic strategist who works closely with clients ondesigning practical responses to the changing world of work and the implications for leaders and theirpeople.
Tony Cotton is a Senior Manager, People Advisory Services, Ernst & Young LLP. He is an organizational
psychologist and psychometrician with over 30 years’ experience. He has conducted workplace research inAustralia, Canada, and the UK. Tony has worked directly with senior leadership groups in organizations
across a range of sizes and functions providing high level workplace research and statistical analysis of
workforce survey data. For five years, Tony was responsible for the design and analysis of one of the largest
workplace surveys in the Southern hemisphere.

About the Singapore Authors
Desmond Tan is the Managing Director for DDI Singapore. His career journey has taken him between
consulting and several senior leadership roles in talent management/organizational development acrossmultiple industries. He has extensive experience in human resources and organizational development bothin the United States and around Asia. His expertise encompasses the design and implementation ofassessment and development centers, change and talent management processes, organizational
development interventions, as well as capability building and development/learning strategies.
Kwang Sook Fong is Senior Marketing Consultant for DDI Singapore. She started her career as an educator
before moving on to the financial industry where she was responsible for driving the growth andperformance of various functions in customer service, business development and marketing
communications.

Sponsors
Association for Talent Development
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CNBC
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information, providing the latest real-time market information, unrivaled coverage of breaking news, indepth analysis and interviews with business leaders and political figures from around the world. CNBC has a
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HR Certification InstituteFor more than 40 years, top executives have put their trust in fully accredited HR Certification
Institute® (HRCI®) credentials when making hiring and promotion decisions. As a result, more than
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HRoot
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Human Resource Excellence Centre
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membership-based organization for HR professionals. By the end 2017, more than 3,500 companies
had joined HREC as corporate members. HREC member services include events, magazines, survey
reports, public and in-house training, corporate visits, etc. HREC is a premier resource for leading HR professionals in
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Manufacturing Leadership Council
Founded in 2008, the Manufacturing Leadership Council’s vision is to create and inspire a
global community of manufacturing executives who believe in the proposition that
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manufacturing executives to achieve transformational growth for themselves, their companies, and for the industry atlarge through enlightened leadership.

Acknowledgments
This study was a true global effort between three partners. The authors would like to acknowledge the invaluable
contributions of the following people:
Executive Stakeholder Team
Evan Sinar, Gina Dickson, Richard Wellins, Rebecca Ray, Amy Liu Abel, Sayed Sadjady, Adam Canwell
Project Management Team
Beth Gillen, Amanda Popiela, Liz Collins
Research Advisors
Mike Kemp, Sarah Mogan, Kirsten Jaeger, Frank Steemers, Ben Cheng
Graphic Design
Janet Wiard, Kelli Passalacqua
Cover Design
Susan Ryan
Editorial
Bill Proudfoot, Mike Gillen
Project Contributors
Ashley Heinrichs, Elizaveta Belfer, James Court, Daphne Luchtenberg
WebMark Hamilton, Stacy Infantozzi, Joe McBride, Keri Hritz
Global Participant Recruitment
Sinem Bahceli, Lucero Barbosa Martinez, Stella Chang, Elizabeth Chivers, Michelle Emanuele, Alex Fasken, PriscillaGiglio, Frisca Harmala, Chiqui Ho, Julie Hogan, Yumi Ikeda, Sirin Kont, Sofía López de Aréchaga, Christal Martin,
Gayatri Patankar, Amy Reed, Charna van der Merwe, Sarah Zhu

About

About

About

DDI

The Conference Board

EY

We work side by side with people who arerelentless about identifying anddeveloping leaders who perform and will
leave an enduring legacy. Because
better leaders lead to a better future,
we’ve been obsessed with the scienceand practice of leadership for nearly five
decades. We help clients uniquely define
and achieve great leadership at every
level of their organization, from aspiring
leaders all the way to the C-Suite. Our
promise remains: Together, we can cocreate a solution that’s aligned with yourbusiness context and aimed squarely at
your business goals.

The Conference Board is a global,
independent business membership andresearch association working in the public
interest. Our mission is unique: To provide
the world’s leading organizations with thepractical knowledge they need to
improve their performance and better
serve society. The Conference Board is a
non-advocacy, not-for-profit entity
holding 501 (c) (3) tax-exempt status in
the United States. www.conferenceboard.org

EY is a global leader in assurance, tax,
transaction and advisory services. The
insights and quality services we deliver
help build trust and confidence in thecapital markets and in economies theworld over. We develop outstanding
leaders who team to deliver on our
promises to all of our stakeholders. In sodoing, we play a critical role in building abetter working world for our people, for
our clients and for our communities.

> Strategy> Selection> Development> Succession Management

EY refers to the global organization, andmay refer to one or more, of the member
firms of Ernst & Young Global Limited,each of which is a separate legal entity.
Ernst & Young Global Limited, a UK
company limited by guarantee, does notprovide services to clients. For more
information about our organization,please visit ey.com.

www.ddiworld.com© Development Dimensions International, Inc., The Conference Board Inc., EYGM Limited, 2018. All rights reserved.