Deloitte CLO Ashley Goodall Discusses Performance Management

Deloitte Chief Learning Officer Ashley Goodall is in charge of developing leaders and reinventing the company’s approach to performance management.

As Goodall sees it, developing leaders is a matter of enabling leaders to identify their own strengths and weaknesses. "You’re the best judge of your own strengths and weaknesses," Goodall explains. "It’s not simply about what you’re good at or bad at, it’s about what creates energy and excitement for you."

"We help people understand which things are lifting them up and which things are pushing them down and how to change their time, so there’s more of the former and less of the latter."

As Goodall explains, the self assessment encourages leaders to view themselves through the perspective of others. "We’ve taken this a step beyond by identifying that leadership is a function of followership. One big reason that people follow you is for what you’re really great at doing. We try to get leaders to answer the question - why would anyone follow you and what are the things you’re particularly great at doing tht maybe are drawing people to you as followers and how can you do more of that?"

"When we talk about "Spike," that’s what we mean. A strength that is so apparent to those around you that it motivates them to follow you."

Goodall notes that leadeship styles are truly distinctive. "If you look at successful leaders, they are all different -- they stand for different things and go about the task of leading in very diffferent ways."