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The author argues that companies should take an energetic role in sponsoring activities to develop executive leadership; such a program will develop leadership abilities at the broadest level.

As we begin the 21st century, evidence abounds that executive and leadership development has failed to meet expectations. Unless we change our assumptions and think differently about executives and the development process, we will continue to find too few executives to carry out corporate strategies, and the competence of those executives available will be too often open to question. The “competency model” of the executive, proposing as it does a single set of competencies that account for success, must be supplemented with a development model based on leadership challenges rather than executive traits and competencies. Executive performance must focus on “what gets done” rather than on one way of doing it or on what competencies executives have. In turn, executive development must be viewed as meeting performance challenges essential to the business strategy rather than attending development programs, with senior executives making development decisions much as they make business decisions today.