Developing an Effective Leadership Development Program
A company is only as good as the leadership behind it. Too often, leadership development falls behind other priorities and projects that take precedence over developing stronger leaders and preparing the employees to step into leadership roles. By developing strong leaders, organizations are set up for the future. They can see improvements in performance, workflow, employee satisfaction, and more.
A robust leadership development program is essential to strengthen your company's current leaders and provide a path for development for potential leaders. Your company's leadership development program provides an opportunity to grow the skillsets they will need to advance within the organization. Organizations need good leaders with the right skills to manage people, execute strategies, mitigate change, and find opportunities to grow in an ever-changing business landscape.
What is a Leadership Development Program?
Leadership development is the practice of developing individuals within an organization to readily step into a leadership role or to develop current leaders. Leadership development can be accomplished in a number of ways, all with the same goal in mind: To improve the abilities and skillsets of employees and boost the confidence of potential and existing leaders within your organization. Leadership development programs usually include classes, webinars, presentations, coaching, and more to gain the knowledge and practice needed to succeed in their current role and improve upon skills for future roles.
How to Build a Leadership Development Program
Providing a leadership development program to your employees can bring several benefits to your company. Employees and leaders who feel their company cares about their development are more motivated, boosting productivity, creativity, and innovation leading to a more successful, more rounded team. Follow these steps to develop an effective leadership development program.
Define The Company's Leadership Needs – Before you begin with a leadership development program, you have to evaluate your company's leadership needs. Are there any current gaps in the leadership now or that may occur in the future? Leaders may be looking to move to a new position within the company or find employment elsewhere. Leaders may even just be preparing to retire. If any of the company's leaders move on, you need to be ready to have someone step in easily without interrupting the current workflow that has the characteristics and attributes of the former leader.
Assess the Company's Goals - Consider the short and long-term goals of the company to ensure you have the right leadership in place to help you meet those goals. What would you like your leaders to be able to accomplish? What are the values you'd like future leaders to have? Your organization's values contribute to the success of your business and help you achieve milestones and goals. You want to choose leaders that embrace those values and help lead teams to success.
Review Leadership Trends and Traits – Organizations are consistently evolving and changing how their company is managed. Flexibility in any industry is vital in growing and adapting to the needs of employees of every level. Reviewing the latest trends in leadership development can ensure your organization's strategies are in line and ahead of the curve. Review trends that are working for other organizations and take notes of traits of leaders that you'd like to see in your company's future leaders.
Assign Roles – Find facilitators, trainers, or instructors for your leadership development program who have experience, exhibit the traits and values you would like to see in your leaders, and are inspiring and motivating. Employees working through a leadership development program need direction. They are easier to get on board when working with someone who inspires them to improve and grow in their leadership abilities.
Choosing someone that fits the role can be challenging and time-consuming. You can choose current leaders to work with and develop potential leaders through one-on-one meetings and coaching sessions to ensure they are moving in the right direction in learning the essential skills and abilities they need to become future leaders. You can also outsource your leadership development by assigning training, coaching, or classes to enroll your participants to take some of the work off of you and other leaders in your organization.
Tailor Development to Each Individual – Developing leaders can be accomplished through several different methods, from one-on-one coaching to e-learning to training modules. Leadership skills are complex and are not a one-size-fits-all approach. Creating a leadership development program should cover a range of skills and roles to develop in ways relevant to their position and positions they hope to move into as they grow their career. Your current and hopeful leaders within your company review how development can be accomplished and decide what avenue would work best according to each person.
Always Look to Identify Potential Leaders – Potential leaders are not always easy to spot and can be found in any number of positions within your organization. Companies often turn to reviews and performance indicators to find potential leaders, but just because someone is excelling in their current position doesn't mean they have the leadership abilities your company might be looking for. Additionally, if someone is not a top performer, they could still possess outstanding leadership skills.
Offering your employee's leadership assessments or encouraging one-on-one check-ins with each person can help you identify who may be an effective leader and a good candidate for a leadership development program.
Monitor the Programs Results – To better understand if your leadership development program is working and is successful, you need to be able to develop milestones and results that can be measured. Some benchmarks or results you can measure include tracking the number of people who complete the program, including surveys or assessments throughout, collecting feedback from peers, or measuring how many people have actually been promoted after going through the program.
Your company's success depends on your leaders today and the leaders of the future. Providing a path to develop skillsets and abilities that can improve current leaders and set employees up for future promotions within your organization can benefit your business by boosting morale and improving the bottom line. Ensure your leadership development program emphasizes the values and traits of leaders that will help you achieve the company's short-term goals consistently and effectively.
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