they are born; and so we arrive at the key strategic importance of leadership development. In his tenure at the helm of the world's most successful conglomerate - General Electric - Jack Welch transformed the organization's approach to leadership training. His legacy is a gigantic 1 billion annual spend on training and development. Other organizations such as Colgate-Palmolive also invest heavily in this area - the company currently runs over 70 individual leadership programs aimed at supporting individual development. Clearly, the task of shaping world-beating leaders is a very serious business indeed. While of course not all organizations have access to the resources on hand at GE or Colgate, the emerging consensus from studies and research is that the rewards on offer are simply too great to be ignored by anyone. A survey of 750 CEOs by the Center for Creative Leadership revealed an overwhelming belief in good leadership as pivotal to a company's success. And according to management consultancy Bain & Company, when it comes to leadership, companies that systematically and continuously put the right leaders in the right jobs outperform companies that do not - by a wide margin.