Introduction

Nearly 60% of companies are facing leadership talent shortages that are impeding their performance. Another 31% expect a lack of leadership talent to impede their performance in the next several years. Yet, in 2009, U.S. companies spent an estimated $12 billion (24% of their overall training budgets) on leadership development programs and services. By any reasonable standard, what we are currently doing to grow and develop future leaders is not working. (Ashford, DeRue, 2010, para. 1) In August of 2011, the national unemployment rate in the United States was 9.1% or 14 million people without jobs (bls.gov, 2011). Despite an abundance of available workers, American businesses are finding it difficult to locate personnel who possess leadership abilities. Why are potential leaders hard to find? There are over 7,000 established American recruiting firms and over one million recruiters on LinkedIn and other professional network sites who are searching for candidates who they can place into vacant leadership positions. With 14 million unemployed workers seeking employment and over one million recruiters seeking to assist companies’ acquisition of leaders, why are 93% of American businesses facing or predicting to face performance losses due to leadership talent shortages? The most likely cause for this phenomenon is a lack of available personnel who are perceived as possessing the characteristics of an effective leader. What qualities do an effective leader exhibit? The subjective nature of this question makes it difficult to provide a definitive answer; however, a comparison of executive responses reveals three reoccurring answers, good communication skills, credibility, and the ability to inspire. If these three characteristics/skills are the measure by which executives and recruiters determine an individual’s leadership potential, then