It has been said before and I?ll repeat it here again: successful companies throughout the world and on this island are those companies who manage to grow and develop their leaders. The ultimate test of success for your company is not how much profit or return on investment you are able to generate ? but how successful you have been in developing your leaders. Why? Because research indicates that this is the only way, in our globalized and fast-changing world, that you?ll keep winning every time.

Let?s take an example to illustrate this simple and important message. Because you are a shrewd and astute businessman with a flair for spotting deals and concluding sales, you have now realized that the service industry is the route to go in Mauritius. After some market research, you decide to set up a company specialized in say, the operation of a call centre, and at the end of your second year of operation, you announce triumphantly your first profits. Suddenly, during your third year, disaster strikes: technology changes or the competition comes up with a better service or your best staff gets poached. You and your top management do not respond to these changes ? either you didn?t see them coming, dismissed them as not important or simply didn?t know how to handle them. As a result however, sales decline, profits collapse and soon you are close to panic. What went wrong? Simple: Your leadership has failed to respond to a challenge. And if you look closely, you?ll probably find that this is because you, as the CEO, have failed to grow and develop the leaders around you. It happened in one company I know in Port Louis because the CEO could not get to grips with the thorny problem of developing a successor to take over when he retired. It happened in another when the CEO and his team did not respond in a timely manner to the challenges posed by a more innovative competitor.

The ultimate test for a leader then is not whether he or she can conclude deals or make shrewd decisions ? but whether or not he or she can grow and develop others into becoming leaders and build an organization that can sustain its success even when he or she is not around. How different the large parastatal organization, the partnership, the small panel-beating shop you are running, would be if you had been able to train, coach and nurture others around you in behaving as true leaders. Imagine what difference it would make if we were all able to capture the essence of what will make us successful in our business and pass this on to others. Imagine what difference it would make if we were all able to energize others around us into becoming leaders and in turn, developing our staff into leaders.

And make no mistake: on this 64 by 47 km island, there are many such capable persons who intuitively know how to develop others into true leaders. One that I have known for a while now and greatly respect for both his wisdom and foresight, manages a large organisation of essentially difficult and tempestuous people. Why does he succeed when others around him fail? Because he has in him this extraordinary ability to energize and motivate others when he communicates. Another is one of our own junior lecturers who becomes a leader when she enters her class. Why is she so successful with her students whilst some of her colleagues struggle? Because she is able to motivate and energize them into learning. And I could go on and on with more examples.

Can your company then become such a winning company capable of growing and nurturing its leaders successfully? Research indicates that it can. If you succeed in meeting the following four fundamental requirements, you?d be well on your way:

• Top management commitment. First and foremost, your top management must have as a declared and true value that you attach much importance to the development of others into true leaders. It must be one of your company?s top priorities.

• A structured process. Secondly, you must have in place a structured process that ensures that potential leaders are developed systematically over a long period of time. There are no ?quick fixes? here ? no quick two- or three-day workshops ?guaranteed? to turn you or your colleagues into leaders. Instead it is a long and arduous process that involves discovering your strengths and weaknesses and developing the latter accordingly.

• A supportive climate. Thirdly, embedded in this structured process, there must exist a supportive climate in your organisation that allows for experimentation and reflection. No occasion, positive or negative, must be missed for getting those concerned to pause, look back on what has just happened and draw precious lessons. At the Business School, we call this process ?action learning? ? the ability to learn through one?s actions.

• Role models. Finally, there must be the appropriate role models ? people who are personally willing to invest both time and emotional energy in teaching and developing others. These individuals have a proven record of success, have mastered in full techniques such as coaching and mentoring and are passionate about growing others into true leaders.

The scarcest resource on this island is our leadership talent ? one that is capable of continuously transforming our organisations in order to win at the local or regional level. We need to be able to create our sustainable competitive advantage by deliberately investing in and developing our leadership talent.

Prof Eric Charoux; Feedback: [email protected]