Of the many challenges vying for leaders' action, developing Next Gen leaders and failure to attract or retain top talent were rated as biggest concerns in 2018, according to a survey.
According to the Global Leadership Forecast (GLF) 2018, done by Development Dimensions International (DDI), The Conference Board and EY - of the 28 challenges to choose from developing 'Next Gen' leaders, and failure to attract or retain top talent were rated in the top five by 64 per cent and 60 per cent of respondents, respectively.
The research has integrated data from 25,812 leaders and 2,547 HR professionals across 2,488 organisations. The research, which spans more than 1,000 senior level executives and 10,000 high-potential employees in 54 countries, including in India, in 26 major industry sectors.
After spending more than USD 50 billion annually on developing their leaders, many companies still don't have the bench strength to meet their future business goals, it said.
It revealed that senior leaders were aware of the importance of focusing on strengthening human and specifically, leadership capital.
However, with 58 per cent never having been mentored, it will be difficult to know how to mentor others, it said.
"If you're deeply concerned about your organisation's lack of leadership capability, you are in the clear majority," said Evan Sinar, chief scientist and vice president of DDI, and lead author of the GLF.
The survey found that a significant gap exists between the criticality of this leadership skill and leaders own assessment of their ability to successfully master it.
Only 35 per cent of HR professionals rated their organisation's bench strength, the supply to fill critical leadership positions over the next three years, while only 43 per cent of positions could be filled by an internal candidate immediately, it said.
Thirty-seven per cent believe their succession management system and processes to be of low or very low effectiveness, it added.
On average, respondents feel they can fill only 43 per cent of their critical roles with strong internal leaders, leaving them to search outside for often costlier, higher-risk external candidates.
The survey found that overall quality varies widely by country, industry and level.
Overall, leaders rated senior leadership quality considerably higher than the quality of those in the first-level positions, it said.
Similarly, in India also 54 per cent HR respondents said they have high quality senior leadership and only 19 per cent in first level positions, it added.
The survey said as the as organisations increasingly leverage technology to modernise their business strategies, competition rains in from every direction.
Looking ahead, it said, technologies such as robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) are projected to affect two billion jobs over the next decade and organisations with digitally savvy leaders are outperforming those with less digitally capable leaders.
It said, the pioneers, digitally savvy leaders, are more prepared than the laggards to meet emerging business challenges.
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