The business world is diving deep into leadership development programs to help them recruit and maintain the best employees. However, this is leading to a problem of high demand, which is increasing the price of these programs. Companies often engage the services of third parties to create and facilitate these programs.
Of course, there are cheaper methods to implement leadership development training programs. It’s called creating your own, and it’s easier than you think. No doubt developing leadership skills is an essential part of self-improvement, and it all starts with the will for it to be done.
But what does a successful leadership development training program look like? What does it take to create leaders out of your employees and make good leaders better?
3 Things You Need To Do To Create Your Own Leadership Development Programs
Identify Goals and Objectives
You have to create objectives and goals for yourself, your employees and the program. Planning is necessary for any program. After all, objectives let everyone know where the finish line is and makes it easy to measure successful outcomes. Start with simple goals, such as improving current performance or learning some new important skills.
The idea is to create goals that you can’t move and alter later on. You want to create attainably, yet inspiring goals. If you create unrealistic goals, you’re setting everyone up for failure, and this can damage your self-esteem and morale.
Value and Skill Assessments
Once goals and objectives have been established, it’s important to know if you have what it takes to see succeed. During this phase, everyone sits down and takes an evaluation of themselves. Each person writes down their skills and personality traits. Also, be sure to include the positive and negative traits to ensure that everyone completes a true picture of who they are.
Look again at the goals and the list to see what will help and what could stop each person and the team from moving forward and making progress. Also, be sure to make notes of these.
Action Planning
The last phase of the planning process is to merge the previous two phases. During this phase, you identify interventions that will help you and the team reach the objectives.
What skills are available? Also, are there skills anyone could learn to improve performance or leadership? If anyone identified negative habits, don’t forget to add them to the list to be replaced.
It is important to be as clear as possible here. Create solid actions that will lead to successful goal completion. If meetings have to be set up or attended, do it. Are there deadlines to contend with? If reading books is a necessity, do it. Be sure to develop plans and write them down to review. Making and recording action plans by following this three-step process will make goals more attainable than before.
How To Put Together and Conduct Successful Leadership Development Programs
People who design and facilitate leadership development programs should have some sensitivity to the needs of the various types of leaders in such programs. However, that’s not always the case. Leaders often rely on others and their experiences to help them meet goals, while other leaders rely on their abilities and experiences to improve their leadership abilities.
It’s also important to understand that the traditional, strict and formal way of conducting a leadership development program isn’t always the best way to get the message across. Today, leaders crave experiences that go beyond theories and books. Today’s leaders desire real-life learning experiences.
Many leadership development clients prefer non-conventional leadership development programs, which is why it’s important to come up with interventions and development strategies that are not only practical but also revolutionary. Good examples of revolutionary interventions are to focus on self-motivation, character building and personal development.
Why?
This generation’s leaders assess and reassess themselves regularly. Self-motivation and self-assessments furthermore enable leaders to recognize their strengths and character traits, along with their weaknesses and flaws.
These interventions enable leaders to identify their effective abilities and traits that should be continued, their ineffective traits and behaviours that should be discontinued or replaced, and new effective skills, abilities and traits that should be developed. Research indicates that this improves company morale and enables collaborative work environments that move organizations towards the meeting of goals. Subsequently, leaders do not allow weaknesses and challenges to damper the spirit of the company and its employees because they take the necessary steps to eliminate and mitigate them.
Self-motivation and Personal Development
For leadership development program participants to be open to the idea of self-motivation and personal development to better their leadership skills, it is fundamental that they clearly understand that a motivated leader can set his or her mind to something and see it materialize. It also means they have something to look forward to, like to ensure the results are attained.
Another important thing that leadership development program participants should understand is to take the small wins. It is valuable, to start with smaller, easily-attainable tasks. Some people are natural-born leaders that seem to motivate others easily, while others have to work hard to become effective leaders. For them, if they understand that starting with something easy and small is the best way to go, they’ll soon realize how easy it eventually becomes to achieve success.
But how do we know whether a Leadership Development Program is successful?
Leadership development programs inspire and motivate company leaders to be successful. This motivation drives them to achieve individual and organizational. Unfortunately, many leaders don’t understand this is only the beginning.
Another major cause of leadership failure in organizations is internal conflict amongst leaders. To increase organizational leadership effectiveness and collaboration, a cross-departmental leadership development program can be extremely helpful.
How can team collaboration be improved by leadership development? Leadership Development experts agree that leadership is key to effective collaboration, and that effective collaboration can be developed just like self-motivation. While there are numerous studies about the benefits of and relationship between team collaboration and self-motivation, very few leaders follow the advice.
If you’re creating a leadership development program for leaders and prospective leaders, some specific areas could be measured to determine the success of the program.
6 Ways Leadership Development Programs Can Be Successful
Leaders are able to think ahead
The ability to plan for foreseen and unforeseen events is part of the foundation of a great leader. This enables the leader to contend with bigger and harder challenges that arise. By thinking ahead of time, they make careful plans to ensure possible mistakes are mitigated.
Leaders are inspired to learn about themselves
A sign of a great leader is the motivation to consistently learn about oneself with the intention to self-improve. Great leaders know what their strengths and weaknesses are, and move past, manage and address them. They can even find ways to improve their strengths.
Leaders are excited to share their experiences with others
Leaders who are directly involved with employees and humbly share their experiences tend to be more effective in boosting company morale and retaining employees in their teams. These leaders move beyond the fear of competition and create opportunities for succession.
Leaders pursue additional learning
Effective leaders know and understand that constant learning is necessary. They understand the need for staying up to date with relevant strategies, tools and methods, and that new skills are necessary to stay relevant and ensure the company meets its goals. Great leaders are inspired to continue their learning which could open up another world of opportunities they never believed was possible.
Leaders think and act positive
Leaders are often faced with negative feelings and thoughts, especially when mistakes were made. Great leaders can acknowledge and face negative emotions, admit that they too make mistakes that aren’t always in the best interest of employees and the company, and move beyond feelings and past failures to achieve the organization’s higher purpose and mission.
Leaders let the team and individuals shine
Successful leaders put their glory aside and let the spotlight shine on their teams’ and individuals’ contributors where praise is due. Great leaders never take credit for others’ successes. They give recognition and praise and celebrate all victories, even the small ones.
Empowering Comments Welcome
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What is working for you, and what is not?
What advice do you have for building a collaborative team environment?
If you prefer audio, there will soon be a podcast version of this post available here: Creating Leadership Development Programs That Will Take Your Company To The Next Level @ The Safe Life Revolution Podcast
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