Grow Your Own Leaders: How to Identify, Develop, and Retain Leadership Talent

by William C. Byham, Audrey B. Smith, Matthew J. Paese

Today's enterprises face a profound leadership crisis - and the speed of business has far outstripped conventional executive development systems. In Grow Your Own Leaders , three world-renowned experts introduce an entirely new approach for identifying tomorrow's leaders within your own organization, accelerating their development, and deploying them immediately, to address new challenges wherever they emerge.

Genres: Leadership

376 pages, Hardcover

First published February 19, 2002

About the author

Bill Byham is Founder and Executive Chairman of Development Dimensions International (DDI), an internationally renowned human resource training and consulting company. An Industrial/Organization Psychologist, Bill has developed many significant human resource technologies over the course of his career. These innovations include the assessment center method, behavior-based interviewing, the use of behavior-modeling in supervisor and management training, behavioral job analysis methodology as the basis for selection and training programs, and Acceleration Pools® to select and rapidly develop people for high-level leadership positions. These technologies have been described in 23 books and more than 300 monographs and articles. In addition, he has appeared on numerous radio and TV programs through the world.

Reviews

[Bethany · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a tad dated (2002 I was in high school, yikes). But, this is some of the best leadership development stuff I’ve read. And it’s coming from the opposite side of it- instead of a “this is what you do to become a great leader” book, it’s speaking to current leaders developing their successors. I learned so much hearing it from the other side of the table. What are they looking for? What skills does it take? What experiences do you need to have?

I read this with the intention of helping develop some leaders I’ve recognized and recently had the privilege of supervisors, but took away a lot of information for my own development. No one else might be investing in me, but now I know how to invest in myself and get those big returns.

The premise is to have a pool of strong internal candidates ready to step up whenever there is an opening. It is a real struggle when a key leadership role is suddenly vacant and no one is ready and now you have to pay head hunters to find good external candidates you know nothing about and taking a huge gamble on them working out... so set yourself up for success with the Acceleration Pool. The book describes the methodology and provides examples but really leaves the details up to your business. Very great insight for any aspiring executives