Stop focusing on building leaders.  I bet you never thought you would hear that from me.  But it’s true…if we focus only on building leaders instead of building a leadership development culture our leadership development efforts won’t last.  When an organization comes to a realization they have a leadership problem and make a determination that they need to “develop leaders’ they will do just that.  They will turn their attention to developing leaders for a season but once they  start getting some movement they will turn their focus to something else and within a short period of time they will have leadership problems again.  Instead of focusing on building leaders I would suggest you put your focus on building a leadership development culture.  How do you do that?  Here are 10 factors to consider as you seek to build a leadership development culture.

• Factor 1 – The senior leadership are involved in developing leaders.  If they don’t model it, it won’t stick in your culture
• Factor 2 – Make leadership development an expectation for every leader. Actually add it to every leaders  job description
• Factor 3-  Design a Leadership Development strategy that you teach on a consistent basis
• Factor 4 – Talk about it often (in fact talk about it too much)
• Factor 5 – Use a Common Language.  Develop terms and phrases related to leadership development that will stick in your culture
• Factor 6 – Design systems that are easy to understand and easy to use
• Factor 7 – Provide accountability by measuring it regularly
• Factor 8 – Celebrate it consistently
• Factor 9 – Put someone in charge to champion it
• Factor 10 – Be Patient.  Building a leadership development culture takes (sorry) years

What steps can you take over the next 30 days to start building a leadership development culture?