Designing solutions for critical skill shortages is one thing, but where will the leaders come from to implement these complex initiatives? And what specific leadership capabilities are needed to make a real difference in the quality of your future workforce?

Below are four capabilities leaders need if they’re going to have a major impact on the talent supply for your geographic region or industry.

Engaging Employers in Solving the Skills Gap

First, some background on this challenge. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation is taking a leadership role in trying to implement coordinated solutions to address critical skill shortages across the country. I recently attended the Foundation’s national conference on managing the talent pipeline. An impressive line up of speakers reported on progress to date in creating a methodology to attack the problem. And USA Funds announced a $2.5 million grant to continue the work of taking talent supply solutions to scale.

A cornerstone of the Foundation’s methodology is developing new employer collaboratives that require the sustained engagement of business leaders to manage the demand for skilled talent.

These collaboratives can be organized in many ways depending on employer needs and members’ characteristics.  But they require sophisticated leadership to have an impact. Here are four capabilities that will be essential.

Coordinating a Diverse Network of Key Stakeholders

Developing and guiding an employer collaborative requires leaders who can build trust with executives in a wide range of organizations. For example, Vicki Haugen is CEO of a hybrid economic development and chamber organization in central Illinois’ Vermilion County. To address skill shortages in her region, Haugen must collaborate with executives in a range of industries, organized into workforce clusters, as well as leaders in local educational institutions who can supply promising talent.

Futurist Bob Johansen describes this capability as “cross-cultural grace,” using an agile and poised approach to depolarize different perspectives and bring them into a problem-solving dialogue.

Bridge Macro Programs to Micro Skill Needs

Leading an employer collaborative means continually clarifying how specific programs and mechanisms in the education and training sector will change the capabilities, activities and outcomes for employers. This skill of macro/micro linkage spells out how upstream changes in the talent pipeline (i.e., in schools) will drive productivity impacts for employers within a certain time frame.

Addressing different types of skill shortages on a large-scale means knowing how to connect the capabilities of broader educational programs, which might be training nurse practitioners or welders, to the specific skill needs of individual managers filling a limited set of jobs.

Design & Lead Creative, Engaging Meetings

Leading an employer collaborative also requires the ability to organize and facilitate different kinds of strategic conversations with key stakeholders. Heads of these initiatives must be super creative in how they engage harried, distracted employers, as well as leaders in education, workforce development and government agencies.

Is there enough shared understanding about the skills gap challenges facing your region or industry? Are strategic options clear and fully developed? Do you have enough clarity and emotional buy in from key players to make decisions about options and resource allocations?

Effective leaders recognize that how they answer these questions will determine the types of innovative meetings they need to be designing and convening.

Execution Oriented

Of course, executives directing these collaboratives will only be effective if they are execution oriented and able to create outcomes that demonstrate valuable impacts. Experts on execution argue this requires (1) crystal clear objectives and priorities; (2) emotional commitment to your goals; and (3) translating those goals into very specific actions.

For example, Janice Urbanik, executive director of Partners for a Competitive Workforce in Great Cincinnati, has an organization highly focused on building career pathways in four targeted industries: health care, manufacturing, construction and IT.

As part of this overall effort, Urbanik’s organization supports a set of very clear programs, such as giving STEM experiences to students in the region’s K-12 education system and providing professional development on STEM careers for their teachers. The results of these programs are measured continually to assess impacts on the region’s talent pipeline.

Scaling Up Solutions

The U.S. Chamber Foundation has taken important steps in laying out a Talent Pipeline Methodology, which speaks a language many executives can relate to. But creative solutions like this will only succeed if they’re directed by innovative leaders who can handle the challenging task of scaling up employer collaboratives.