Let's talk leadership development...and why it's so important for any company to groom it's future leaders. Martha Legace with Harvard Business School's Working Knowledge wrote an wonderful blog piece about Grooming the Next Generation Leaders. Three key points from the article are:

1. Talent provides organizations a key competitive advantage, but there must be managers and a process in place to identify and nurture next-generation leaders.

2. Large and small companies may have a leg up in leadership development. Medium-sized organizations have the most difficulty with talent identification because these companies often lack the infrastructure and human resources capabilities.

3. What separates true leaders from the merely capable is flexibility in leadership styles in order to meet challenges of the global economy, rapid commoditization, and hyper-competitive environments.

Take some time to read the full article and see if it fits with your business strategies for 2007. As always, I would love to know what you think.

Michael T. Bauer, MSW is the President and Chief Creative Officer of Innovative Business Resources, LLC, a management consulting firm that focuses on helping organizations align their leadership and culture with their business strategy.

Michael is the publisher of the Creative Edge Newsletter.