What are the top elements of leadership development? Why these top elements of leadership development should be a part of your leadership development programs?
How has leadership development changed?
Over the last three decades, we have clearly moved from the industrial age to the information and communication age. Leadership has changed to keep up with these changes. In the industrial age, leaders relied on their position and power to “command and control” others. Today, a leader is more a facilitator of highly skilled and interdependent employees doing complex work.
Dr. Paul Hersey defined leadership as:
“Working with and through others to achieve objectives.”
Why are the top elements of leadership development important?
Irrespective of the business that an organization undertakes, Leadership development is definitely an important aspect. The quality of leadership in a company is the single most effective predictor of long-term success. Good leaders help productivity, performance, and profits. Poor leaders are a drag on engagement, productivity, and performance.
Leadership development critically impacts the overall functioning of an organization. Here are some important indicators and top elements of leadership development:
- An improved retention rate of employees and effective recruitment
- Improved skills among the employees and enhanced productivity
- Promotes better employment
- Leadership development programs positively impact the ROI (Return on investment)
- Plays a pivotal role in shaping and improving the corporate culture
- Develops role models within the organization and also helps in the identification of potential leaders.
Read: The importance of Leadership: Business impact of good and poor leadership
“The single biggest way to impact an organization is to focus on leadership development. There is almost no limit to the potential of an organization that recruits good people, raises them up as leaders and continually develops them.”
-John Maxwell
There is a plethora of leadership development programs and activities that help improve the skill sets of leaders. Leadership training programs, E-learning, B-school curriculum, and many more. What are the top elements of leadership development that should be included in any leadership development program?
Steps to Developing a good leadership development program:
1. Identifying the right leadership improvement areas :
Every individual, every leader, every company, and every situation is unique. Standard cookie-cutter programs that “teach” everyone the same leadership skills don’t work. Such programs may increase the intellectual knowledge around the concepts of leadership but result in little change of behavior at work. In other words, the training remains theoretical with no practical application. Identifying individual leadership development needs that are aligned to the organizational goals is the key element for an effective program.
2. Identifying the right participants:
Well-defined criteria to select participants in leadership development in a necessary and important element for success. Most companies evaluate employees on the basis of past performance, and future potential. Employees are classified into either nine boxes, or four boxes, based on their past performance and future potential.
As high performers and high potentials deliver better business results, they are the starting point and the main focus group. Then the program may be cascaded to include others.
Another top element of a successful leadership development program is to start from the topmost leader and cascade leadership development down. When the top leaders practice what they preach, it has a cascading and a multiplier effect on other employees, which in turn helps the performance.
3. Keeping track of the right metrics:
Having a progress tracker is of utmost importance. Progress levels should be tracked down for each goal set out and each activity performed.
Some of the metrics tracked by most companies are:
- The number of participants
- Number of training programs
- Percentage of employees covered
- Post-program evaluation by participants etc.
While these metrics are necessary, they are not sufficient! The real measure of the effectiveness of any program is actual application at work – real behavior change in the leader, as observed by the leader’s team members.
Read: Leadership development plan example template – a real-life case study
5 Must include top elements of leadership development program:
The five most important skills that an effective leadership development program must include are:
1. Communication: Top elements of leadership development program
By definition, leadership is getting work done with and through others. Communication skill is the most important pillar of leadership development training. It is not a skill that leaders can learn by just reading, watching a video, or listening to a presentation. In a leadership role, communication happens at all levels and all the time. It can be through large presentations, one-on-one conversations, phone calls, text messages, videoconferencing and, emails, etc. Leaders spend the majority of the time communicating. Thus, having good communication skills plays a vital role in the development of effective leadership.
2. Accountability: Top elements of leadership development program
We hold leaders accountable for their actions since that is the most important factor that decides the team’s performance. They are not the only contributors to the success factors. Having trained the leaders on this can ensure that they can define accountability. In this way, they can ensure uniformity through constant fulfillment of the commitments, producing positive results. Leaders have to hold themselves and others accountable to the goals and the results. Without accountability, a brilliant strategy and a fabulous plan will surely break down.
3. Change Management: Top elements of leadership development program
Organizations are not static; rather, they are dynamic. T Changes in the marketplace, employee turnover, company growth, and countless other factors contribute to ongoing changes. Therefore, leaders must expect and prepare themselves for constant change, which requires training the leaders to manage change effectively whenever it happens. Thus, it is a crucial aspect of a good leadership development program, especially in today’s VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous) business world we work in.
4. Influence & Negotiation: Top elements of leadership development program
Effective leaders inspire, persuade, encourage and prepare others to help drive their vision into reality. By learning to negotiate and influence, leaders take on the roles to influence the employees to achieve the best results. Leaders must use this skill to build relationships, align priorities, and find a win-win situation that ultimately leads to the best results.
5. Coaching: Top elements of leadership development program
Of the variety of leadership development programs and methodologies available today, leadership coaching is THE MOST effective leadership development tool. It is one of the most important skills that a leader must have to derive the true potential of the employees the leader leads.
One of the best ways for the leader to learn how to become a coaching leader is to undergo coaching themselves.
A leader is always leading by example, whether she knows it or not, wants it or not, believes it or not, or likes it or not! – Tushar Vakil
NAL Triple Advantage Leadership Coaching
That delivers guaranteed and measurable leadership growth. It is based on a stakeholder centered coaching process with a 95% effectiveness rate (in a study or 11000 leaders on 4 continents). It is used by companies ranging from startups to 150 of the Fortune 500 companies to develop their leaders.
Here are some of the salient benefits of NAL Triple Advantage Leadership Coaching
Time and resource-efficient: The leader does not have to leave work to attend training programs. We go to the leader and her team. And it only takes 1.5 hours per month. The rest of the time, the leader is working to implement with her team.
Separate and customized improvement areas for each leader: Every leader is different. One size fits all approach doesn’t work. Individual development areas for each leader aligned to the business strategy.
Involves entire team: Unlike most leadership programs, NAL Triple Advantage Leadership Coaching involves the leader’s entire team, and it has a cascading effect – increasing the team effectiveness and improving organizational culture.
The leader becomes the coach: for continuous improvement for leaders themselves and their teams. It is like kaizen for your leadership development.
Cost-Effective: Our entire one-year coaching engagement often costs less than sending the leader to a short-duration leadership program at any reputed B school.
Guaranteed and measurable leadership growth: as assessed – not by us – but anonymously rated by the leader’s own team members.
Pay us only after we deliver results! : We work with many of our clients on a pay for results basis. What does it mean? If the leaders don’t improve, you don’t have to pay us.
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