I just came from a meeting on leadership development for a health care consulting organization. We talked at great length about how their clients were keen to develop leadership capabilities, especially the soft skills. Admirable very standard goals.

Whenever I find myself in discussions like this one though, some part of my mind - the part influenced by Peter Drucker - is shouting that followership develoment is more important. My mind jumps to Drucker's definition of "executive" as anyone in an organization who makes decisions that affect quality and outcome for the organization. Today that definition includes huge numbers of managing and non-managing members of any organization, from receptionists to C-level executives. Quite frankly I am often less worried that a C-level will make a decision that negatively affects the organization than I am that a person lower in position will (the C-level frankly has less opportunity). Take for example the negative media Tim Hortons in Canada received when one of its store managers summarily dismissed an employee for giving a toddler a free sample donut valued at $0.17.

Luckily for Tim's the negative publicity was short-lived, but it might not have been. It might have resulted in considerable loss for the company if customers had boycotted their stores in protest for even one day.

As the economies of developed countries drift further into services-centered models, the risk of similar incidents increases. As we engage more and more of Drucker's knowledge workers, the risk increases. There's no avoiding it. Therefore we should seriously be considering developing these workers' skills in areas such as decision making - areas that are considered even today by many to be a manager's duty. We also need to ensure that we are able to communicate clearly to our followers a strategy and system upon which they can clearly base decisions.

Yes, it will cost. Yes, it will involve a lot of people. Can we risk the potential losses though? If we place front line client-facing responsibilities on these workers it makes simple sense to ensure they have the tools to carry out these responsibilities.