Developing Leaders Through ERGs with Joe Santana

LearnChair Radio Leadership Podcast

LearnChair Radio host Bob Dragone interviews longtime contributor Joe Santana on his new venture to use Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) as leadership development tools. Recent research has shown that while major companies have poured large amounts of funds into leadership development the outcome has been poor in terms of actual leaders developed. Joe’s solution is to use employee groups that already exist in companies to spot, assess and develop leaders for the company. An efficient and cheaper way to produce good leaders. ERGs first came about by employees banding together to promote common interests. These could be efforts to increase diversity and inclusion or promote new methods of production. The groups showed they could be productive in achieving specific goals, and now Joe and his colleagues believe they can allow companies to develop leaders from within. Joe explains how this works and what a company can do set up a leadership development program based on ERGs. This is something a company should consider when deciding to embark on a leadership development program.