Leadership and Learning Forecast for Business Leaders

This report presents the results of a Canadian National survey, conducted by Global Knowledge in 2010. Its focus is on the future learning needs of business leaders. Four hundred twenty business leaders and managers responded to the survey, representing both corporate and government/public organizations as well as a wide range of industries and functional areas. 

Five key questions were addressed with findings indicating that:

• Respondents expect the top business challenges they face today to remain their biggest challenges in the next few years. • To overcome their top business challenges, both senior leaders and front-line managers require either new perspectives and new areas of expertise or a transformation in thinking and behaviour.

• To address the top business challenges, three key organizational development activities were identified: organizational alignment; organizational culture development; and talent management.

• The two leadership competencies identified both as most critical to success and as having the largest learning gaps are 1) communication and 2) coaching, mentoring, and people development.

• The most commonly used delivery modality is instructor-led classroom training, closely followed by structured on-the-job training and online self-instruction. In addition, respondents expect to use online and computer-based methods (self-instruction) and virtual classroom/web approaches (instructor from remote location) considerably more often in futur