What is leadership development?

Leadership development refers to activities that help in increasing the capacity of a person to perform in leadership roles and become a better goal executioner. Though the programs can vary depending on the complexity, cost, and manner of teaching. According to Baldwin and Ford (1988), a leadership development’s success is heavily dependent on the quality of its program offered, the learning style of the learner, and the amount of support and acceptance by the superiors. Leadership development programs are very common for succession planning, which aims to have high-performing leaders take over senior leadership when they become vacant. Some people have tried to differentiate between leadership development and leadership development, the former is used to describe development programs focusing on collective leadership in an organization, and the latter is used to describe individual development programs.  

Leadership development program in India.

India is one of the fastest-growing economies in the world and to support this growth a large pool of highly skilled workforce is required. The backbone of all the emerging economies is their learning and development mechanism. But in India, there is a peculiar problem for L&D. Let me give an example, consider a human body if even one of the organs failed to do its function, that person might lose his life. This is precisely what is happening in many Indian companies.

There needs to be a mechanism that can connect knowledge seekers with knowledge providers. India’s L&D sector is highly organized but many companies underestimate its importance. However, that is not the case with top companies, most big brands actively utilize learning and development to optimize their organizational performance. Now the reason why most companies in India do not give much importance to L&D is due to a mindset of “It will work out somehow”. Another problem for India is, that despite its acclaimed education system, it somehow fails to provide skill orientation properly. Most freshers enter the job market as generalists. There is no real clarity on what job to take and whether the job will provide them personal satisfaction.

Currently, if you compare India and the US economically, then India is just 1/10th of the US. According to some statistics India’s training market has the potential to become a 100 billion dollar market by 2030. While this may seem ambitious since there is so little time, it can still happen if you consider the speed at which India’s economy is growing.

As of now 

• India’s training and development expenditure is less than 1 Billion US Dollar per year.
• India’s skill sector is estimated to become a 20 Billion Dollar market opportunity annually.
• India has over 90% skill-based jobs, which is a sharp contradiction to the current figure of only 6% trained workforce in India.
• India has the capacity to train only 3 million youth against the 12 million youth entering the labor force annually.

Considering all of this, why is India with way more L&D needs standing at just one-hundredth of the US market? The answer lies in the tremendous potential for growth in India’s training industry.

Looking at the future of leadership development programs in India.

Indian Government scenario: Indian Government has understood the importance of L&D and has started the “Skill India” project with a target of providing skill training to 500 million people by 2022. Sufficient funding has been leveraged through its Mudra and MSME schemes. The Government is aiming to increase this training capacity to 15 million yearly by setting up new 1,500 vocational training institutions (ITI/ITCs).

Indian Corporate scenario: India’s corporate spending on training programs is less than 2% of employee spend while most developed countries have corporate spending anywhere between 10 to 15%. With India racing to become the 3rd largest economy by 2030 (Prediction by IMF). If this ends up happening, then it is estimated that at least 100 Indian corporate giants will evolve and be represented in the fortune 500 list. This is an extremely difficult task and can only work when the corporate and retail training industry grows in accordance. Thus looking at the immense demand in coming, the Indian training and development industry has to inevitably form the backbone for this growth to happen. 

Conclusion - India’s job opportunities and managerial hierarchy is presently dominated by generalists. In more developed countries, people usually specialize their job at a certain stage, the result is focused innovation in their area of expertise. With India about to catch up with these countries, the transition from generalist to a “versatilist” or a specialist is inevitable. India is already witnessing a rapid change in the youth’s attitude and aptitude towards innovation and startups. So, Trainers, Mentors & Coaches, look out for the opportunities coming this way. Be informed that you may be one of the most sought after persons in the education field in the next 2 decades. So hone your skills and wait for the golden age of L&D to come.