For a modern firm to get sustain success in market competition, leaders play an increasing important role to give direction, motivating and preaching the vision of future. Upon reach the globalization and economic downturn, enterprises in China faces even harsher environment than western counterpart: low labor cost can no longer sustain high speed economic growth, increasing compressed market and shifting of custom’s preference, and even more great uncertainty of macroeconomic. All the fundamental changes give greatest pressure of Chinese corporate leader, and they have to find way to be more innovative in order to survive. But to be more innovative requires great capacity of leadership, which become bottleneck of corporate prosperity of Chinese firms.
Leadership development, assessing for its methodology, its process and effectiveness, majority of Chinese state-own enterprises and private sectors are lag behind of western counterpart. In state-owned firm, all level of leaders, from team or workshop leader to regional leader, especially high level ones which are called cadre, are managed by different department sometimes called cadre management department rather than HR department. Because of this arrangement, put practice of leadership development in Chinese state-owned firm at awkward situation: the so called cadre management professionals are usually lack of expert knowledge of talent management and generalized HRM knowledge let alone to say leadership development knowledge, so it is quiet impossible for cadre management professionals to fulfill their responsibility, and what they can do is just to arrange interviews and conduct some kind of competence and ethic surveys; because of the separation of cadre management functional from HR department, HR professionals cannot use their expert knowledge and have no voice of cadre management process, which makes HR department very weak among all functionality . The process and criteria of selection high level manager, so called high level cadre, is of both lack of clarity, for example, the criteria of selection cadre is DE(ethic), NENG(competence), QIN(industrious), JI(performance), LIAN(incorrupt), but there is no methodology to measure all of this above, left very large room to politic operation. As to private sectors, owners are often troubled by competence of their follower but have no ideas to systematic develop their talent pool, and used to acquisitioned talent outside in order to reduce the heavily investments both in energy and money. HR department in private usually just execute the will of entrepreneur on some crucial decisions of leadership development process, which limited and constrain they ability to participation of leadership development process. The distance and estrangement between manager and owner, especially in family enterprises, prevent HR professionals from fully understanding strategy of owner, it also prevent HR professionals from design systematic leadership development strategy.
Chinese leadership development, its methodology, its process and effectiveness, has to be update in order to get sustainable growth motion, which means potential market chance for oversee consulting industry specialized in leadership development. Due to traditional conceptions, Chinese firms feel reluctant to outsource some part of leadership development process, but with the speed up of globalization and marked competition the situation will undoubtedly change.