Developing leader bench strength at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta

Vice President and Chief Learning Officer Larry Mohl at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta put it simply, “The organization was going to have a tremendous leadership gap.”

Mohl’s solution was straightforward: instead of struggling to hire talent, Children’s should grow its own. His vision was a Center for Leadership that would address leadership learning, succession planning, and talent management. Leaders would be grown from the bottom up and share a common language, methods, and tools for success. Learning would be provided for leaders at every organizational level.

But how would Mohl get funding? Children’s was highly committed to developing its people, but resources in this nonprofit organization were scarce and carefully managed. The board would approve funding only if metrics showed how the leader training was supporting critical organizational goals. In short, Mohl needed proof of business impact.

The center’s first year of leadership development brought results even broader than expected.