For the HCI Human Capital M-Prize on Leadership, we asked our community of management innovators to help us rethink the standard approach to leadership development. We were looking for progressive practices and disruptive ideas that will help create organizations were every leader is someone that others are genuinely want to follow.

Our readers answered the call: We received 45 stories and hacks that demonstrated a wide range of bold experimentation. You sent them in from all types and sizes of organizations around the world, from public agencies doing economic development work to manufacturing and consumer goods companies, to financial service companies and design shops.

From those, we chose three winners:

Culture Eats Strategy
by Jonathan Becher, Chief Marketing Officer at SAP
When Jonathan Becher took the reins of a global marketing organization, he was surprised to find a team that seemed to want to delegate even minor decisions upward. He quickly realized that the way to change the team was to change that decision-making culture. By removing himself from many decision processes and reducing the stigma and penalties that had been associated with taking risks, he reinvigorated the department and boosted morale and productivity.

Eight weeks in a village goes a long way in making compassionate leaders -- Hindustan Unilever's Rural Immersion program
by Stephen Remedios, Freelance Coach & Executive Trainer at The Stephen Remedios Company
To fill its managerial pipeline, Hindustan Unilever was reaching out to promising young managers and recent graduates, many of whom had studied and worked overseas in the Indian diaspora. Though these executives understood the consumer goods business, in some cases they were out of touch with the customer base they were selling to, especially India's rural customers. To bridge that gap, the company launched a leadership development program that placed these young executives in rural villages for several weeks, to give them the opportunity to get to know the people who would be their customers. The result was an enriching and unforgettable experience, one that develops a unique style of leader.

Music and Leadership: a Perfect Combination
by Luc Galoppin - COO at MedeMerkers
What can managers learn from the arts? We often think of this relationship in one way: patrons support artists. Indeed, that was the origin of the BIZZarts concept. But an effort to support musicians financially turned instead into a powerful learning experience in which managers gleaned valuable lessons from the ways that musicians communicate, rehearse, collaborate, perform -- and even the way they tune their instruments. What's more, this sensory- and experience-based training triggers insights that stay with managers long after the training event. From those, we've selected eight finalists - five stories describing innovative approaches and three hacks proposing new ways to develop managers who are up to the challenges facing us in the 21st century.