Leadership development produces a plethora of gurus long on theory and short on day-to-day leadership experience. A Saturday or Sunday stroll through your favorite bookstore takes you past leadership books aplenty. On any given day, the round file beneath your desk probably overflows with news of the latest programs offering revolutionary techniques for mastering leadership dynamics in 60 seconds.

Annually, companies and organizations spend billions attempting to develop the next generation of leaders. In all too many cases, the budding leader still avoids the crucial conversation, still can’t connect the dots between vision, values and sustainable performance and still leaves the team feeling uninspired, micromanaged, undeveloped and in the dark.

So let’s take the CEO and the organization back to the future by dealing with two major concerns: One, how do we develop a bench full of emerging leaders who can integrate a balanced approach to cultural values and great performance? Two, how can we get the bench constructively pulling together and putting the organization ahead of personal gain?

People have different leadership styles, and they lead best when working from their most natural style.   Patton, Pelosi, the Clintons, Eisenhower, Thatcher and Powell lead or led in different ways. All effective. All winners. All leading by knowing and using their strengths.

Experience proves that putting the right person in the right spot and doing the right things the right way the right number of times leads to personal and organizational success. Proper use of assessment tools helps bring those strengths into focus, increasing the financial and cultural returns on investment driven by training and development initiatives. You build leadership bench strength.

With a superior assessment tool helping identify natural characteristics and attitudes, the experienced or developing leader recognizes how personal style helps meld dominance, social savvy, sense of urgency, structure, diversity, decision making, communication and leadership preferences into a consistent and predictable way of being out front.

This recipe for effective leadership includes four ingredients: inspiration, delegation, education and communication. The right assessment tool shows how you, your current leadership team and your emerging leaders measure up.

Now to the CEO’s second consideration: Can I work with this person? Can this person work with me and the rest of the leadership team? By combining the individual assessments, you can identify similarities and differences among the team.

As you use these tools, consider asking for assistance in building an individual development program for your leaders. An outside coach or an internal mentor can play a critical role in building succession success. When used together, assessments and coaching provide a strong leadership foundation. Some people have more natural leadership talent and ability than others; the rest of us can learn how to do it. This approach makes it possible.

Dan Schneider is a principal and co-founder of The CEO’s Edge in Clive.