Context is critical to successful leadership. A leader who excels in one position may not perform well in another. Have you identified the context(s) in which your strengths are likely to be an advantage?

Too many potentially outstanding leaders have allowed themselves to become stranded in contexts that require leadership approaches that highlight their weaknesses rather than their strengths.

In planning personal and team Leadership development you will achieve a greater return on investment by customising programs that build on strengths rather than compensate for weaknesses.

Building on individual past success/strengths triggers and sustains the intrinsic motivation to learn. In the absence of an inner motivation to learn little learning/development occurs.

Leadership development programs are most effective when they involve learning by addressing real on-job challenges, guided by an appropriate leadership action predictive framework.

There are two important sources from which to gain understanding of leadership action predictive frameworks; the first depends on the ability to critically reflect on past experiences and the second depends on the ability to identify and deploy appropriate leadership theory.

Sustainable leadership in any context requires the ability to balance an understanding of stakeholder expectations with an understanding of the hard facts and as a consequence secure broad support.

Stakeholder expectations typically reflect public commitments which in turn are based on implicit or explicit assumptions. Stakeholders will vigorously defend their public commitments but may be prepared to re-think assumptions based on hard facts.

Appropriate evaluation of leadership development is essential to continuous improvement. Evaluation must be carefully pre-planned and assessed over an appropriate time frame against pre-specified measurable milestone objectives.

Leadership development milestone objectives need to reflect specific desired organisational strategy outcomes. The immediate outcome of development action will provide an indication of the extent to which intrinsic motivation has been triggered but typically will be inconclusive in regard to other time based measurable desired outcomes.