According to a recent survey by the Hay Group,  64% of the top 20 Best Companies for Leadership, say their people are expected to lead even when they are not in a position of authority, a mere 35% of average companies have this mentality.  By expecting that all employees demonstrate leadership skills they are developing employees internally to move up their ranks.  Strategies like this reduce turn over and down time needed to train leaders brought in from outside the company.

Another key finding from the Hay Group, employees from the top leadership companies are more comfortable that their company will come out of tough times stronger.  These people trust their company's leaders to bring them through tough times, and they worry less about losing their jobs therefore allowing them to put their full energy into their work with out the fear that they won't be around to finish it.

So how much time does it take to develop these top leaders? According to the same survey, 22% of the top companies report spending 25 plus days per year training leaders, while only 16.4% of all respondents of the survey reported spending 25 days per year developing their employees.  With this said, top companies spend about 2 days a month training their leaders.  These companies understand that this time is a great investment to their future.

What does all this tell us?  Top companies have great leaders, and leaders come from our people, so we need to spend the time and potentially the money on management training to develop them.  This training effort is an investment not an expense, and should always be seen as such.