December 2006

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Organizations succeed by identifying, developing, and retaining talented leaders. Professors W. Earl Sasser and Das Narayandas, who teach leadership development in one of Harvard Business School's Executive Education programs, discuss the fine points of leadership development. Key concepts include:

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

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