Accelerating Leadership Development: Practical Solutions for Building Your Organization's Potential Hardcover – Illustrated, August 26, 2013

A very good and very ambitious overview of the practice and science of Leadership Development. Berard covers off all the critical content areas beginning with the Leadership Success Profile, through diagnostic assessment, prescribing development solutions, tracking of progress and even including the key content areas to consider when developing current and future leaders. As with any book written by the head of a consulting organization, there is the expected company promotion, but Berard keeps it to a manageable level and shares a great deal of insight through his pragmatic accounting of real situations and client engagements. The What the Experts Say section at the end of every chapter is great for those who want to understand the science underpinning his views, but can be a bit too academic at times and seem more geared to a graduate school audience. If so inclined, you can comfortably accept the author's advice and skip that section and still get a great deal out of this book. Overall, a very good read for those who want to get up to speed on the state of the art and practice in leadership development as well some very pragmatic advice on how to accelerate the leadership development process, which is the author's ultimate goal.

Jocelyn Bérard provides a comprehensive and practical framework for speeding up leadership development in any organization. He does this in three parts: Leadership and Succession – what it takes to be an effective leader, how to identify those with leadership potential and how to create a succession plan; Leadership in Action – important leadership competencies (and behaviors) including coaching, motivation, communication, delegation and influencing others; and Leadership Best Practices – ways for leaders to cascade down strategy, align their teams, manage personal transitions, employ performance management and embracing contemporary learning approaches.Accelerating Leadership Development is a good read. It includes many insights, both from the author’s experience and research sources cited in the engaging “What the Experts Say” section at the end of each chapter. For example, self-awareness becomes more challenging the more senior you are because people are less likely to challenge your direction and behaviors. Bérard offers advice on how to address this challenge.I am glad I read the hard cover version because I underlined many passages and made frequent annotations. This is a guide that is easily reflected on and applied to your leadership development needs. Some of the topics I noted most were the importance of structured practice in developing skills, leading virtual teams and contemporary development approaches. This book is written with an eye on the future.Accelerating Leadership Development includes diverse viewpoints, from Marshall Goldsmith to Andy Warhol, which grounds the points in novel ways. Also, concepts and approaches are communicated through interesting stories and day-to-day analogies, adding spice to the content.This book is an excellent resource for anyone who needs to develop leaders. I would also recommend it to a leader who wants to build his or her competencies, knowledge, experience and personal traits. The framework could be an effective accelerated development plan for personal growth and success.Phil Buckley

Jocelyn is Vice-President Leadership and Business Solutions, International at Global Knowledge and this particular book is part Global Knowledge insight and part storytelling of Jocelyn. Drawing upon interactions, interviews and research with clients, alongside Jocelyn's expertise and experience from his multifaceted career, the book aims to solve the riddle of actually developing leaders into high performing (and high potential) employees of tomorrow. The book begins with something called the Business Performance Framework -- a model that effectively grounds the reader into the books three main parts: leadership and succession, leadership in action and leadership best practices.The book is deep, running 291 pages, and it doesn't skim on thoughts and opinions of leaders across many different verticals whether it's Jack Kitts, CEO of The Ottawa Hospital, Colleen Johnston, CFO at TD Bank, or John Duncan, HR Director at Royal Mail. My favourite model was the Priority Quadrant from Chapter 12 which was built to help leaders determine "whether a particular task is urgent or important" through the quadrants of eliminate, delegate, plan to do (or delegate) and do. It was simple and something I plan on using personally going forward. Accelerating Leadership Development is a guide more than it's a book, something you can refer to several times. You may want to utilize it in your organization's leadership development programs if you're interested in changing the way you actually are developing leaders.In an interesting bit of author trivia, Jocelyn and I also shared the same publisher and editor in my own book, Flat Army: Creating a Connected and Engaged Organization