In these challenging times, more and more organizations are looking for ways to cut their costs while working their way through deficits. There are organizations that believe the simplest and most painless way to manage costs and revenues is through cutting the budget for employee training. However, organizations who are able to see the long term understand that organizational success relies largely on the development of human resources, especially on the competence of the organizational leaders.

There are lots of materials that speak about leadership development. Oftentimes, organizations adhere too much on tips given by such materials that they fail to realize that there are approaches that do not fit their organizational leadership needs. The success of a leadership development programs depends on the fit between the needs of an organization and the approaches being applied to address the problems.

Organizations must understand that leadership development is not about merely reading journals and articles on the subject or participating in trainings and seminars that focus on leadership development. Leadership development and sustaining it is a continuous process. It must be customized to the needs of a specific organization for its benefits to be fully-optimized. Although there is no perfectly canned leadership development program, there are approaches that yield better chances of achieving success in leadership development.

Successful leadership development starts with planning. Organizations must able to identify their present leadership status so it can better gauge given by its leaders and mere members. Organizations must be able to ask themselves and at the same answer the following questions: Do we have an all-inclusive for human resources development? What are the new concepts or ideas that our leaders can learn from leadership development programs? How much time, money, and effort are we willing to spend on developing leadership? Who are the people who are most in need of leadership training? What kind of education, training, and work experiences do they have? How many years have they spent on these? What are the personalities of the targeted participants? What best motivates them?

The next step would be putting the leadership development program into action. In this stage, organizations must ensure that the program they are trying to implement is able to help meet its needs. As a follow-up to the leadership development program, organizations must also give room for coaching or mentoring. Effective coaches and mentors can help decrease learning curves, enabling organizations to realize faster returns on their leadership development investments.

As leadership development is a process, it must be reiterated throughout the lifecycles of different members of the organizations. From entry to exit points, the organizational idea of what a successful leader is must be constantly indoctrinated. Also, leaders must not be left stagnant with ideas. In any organization, leaders often make good mentors and coaches.