While technical and trade skills are widely acknowledged as critical areas of skills shortage in Australia and New Zealand, new data from the Leadership, Employment and Direction (L.E.A.D.) Survey reveals that there is also a significant skills shortage in leadership and management.
From a list of 16 potential areas of skills shortage, the quarterly L.E.A.D. Survey places leadership as second and management as sixth. The rankings were gleaned from 2600 respondents (leaders, managers and employees).
The top 16 skills shortage list, in order, are:
1. Technical areas
2. Leadership
3. Sales and marketing
4. Operations
5. Trade skills
6. Management
7. Customer service
8. Information technology
9. Planning
10. Administration
11. Quality control
12. Strategy
13. Unskilled labour
14. Communications
15. Logistics
16. Process workers
The 11-year-old ongoing L.E.A.D. Survey is conducted by Chase Research for Leadership Management Australasia (LMA). LMA’s chief executive Andrew Henderson said it was concerning to see leadership and management skills so high on the list of shortages. “Leaders and managers clearly need to look in their own backyard too when it comes to skill development. If today’s leaders and managers aren’t spotting and developing tomorrow’s leaders and managers, organisations will suffer a double impact from the apparent skills shortage through their lack of strategic thinking.”
• For the full report visit: www.leadershipmanagement.com.au
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