Companies who decide to implement a leadership development program or bring in a third-party consultant to hold a leadership development program often learn just how expensive it can be to hold such a program.
However, is such a program really necessary for your company’s success? Do the benefits outweigh the cost? After all, for a small or mid-size company, a leadership development program can be very expensive.
The reality is that it’s worth the cost you pay for such a program for five good reasons. Before investing in a leadership development program for your company you should understand how it will benefit the organization.
What are the benefits of a well-designed Leadership Development Program?
Improve Company Morale
A significant advantage of a good leadership development program is employee satisfaction. Happy employees tend to be more productive employees. Good leadership tends to increase employee fulfillment. Why? Employees trust good leaders to do right by them. Employees with good leadership feel superiors are competent and will look out for them.
Poor leadership lowers individual- and team morale and has a detrimental impact on the company as a whole. It reduces employees’ confidence levels and ruins the relationships employees have with the company.
Improve Employee Retention
Another great benefit of a good leadership development program is that it enables the company to attract and retain the abovementioned happy employees. Why would an employee leave if they’re happy with their job and like what they do? By lowering the turnover rate, you don’t need to constantly invest time and money in training and developing new employees. With people in jobs that know what they’re doing, the company does better.
Improve Worker Productivity
As indicated above, when employees are happy, they tend to be more productive. This is reality. When people are merely content in their jobs, they merely do what is expected, and mostly do it well. In contrast, happy employees tend to do more than expected to ensure the company is working towards its goals. While they might not work for free, they most certainly have a desire to succeed. Satisfied employees don’t whine nearly as much as unhappy employees and they’re even glad to do something when asked. Good leaders can inspire happiness and fulfillment in others.
Ensure Company Will Meet Goals
Successful leaders understand how the company operates. If they can address issues that affect employees, they can circumvent any potential problems before they occur. It ensures employees stay focused on the job at hand and are not held back by company challenges.
Good leaders are able to:
- Create visions for the future,
- Execute up inspiring missions, and
- Set SMART Goals (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time-framed) for the company.
Encourage New Ideas
Good leaders create environments where people’s talents grow. Since leaders are human, they are prone to make mistakes and cannot see every detail and potential limitation. A collaborative team environment, that allows for employees to engage and share new ideas without risk of retribution or criticism, encourages team members to do their part and new ideas can take on a life of their own.
How Do Leadership Development Programs Reach Leaders and Potential Leaders?
Studies indicate that a company with great leadership operates smoother than a company with a disorganized structure and poor leadership. These studies contributed significantly to the creation of leadership development training programs. Most leadership programs are designed to identify talented leaders within a company and turn good leaders into great leaders.
Leadership development is an activity that helps people to improve their leadership knowledge and skills. This is accomplished either through formal meetings, training sessions, team-building exercises or workshop retreats. Regardless of the leadership development used, whether formal or relaxed, experts agree that really good leadership development programs are the key to bringing out the best in people (leaders).
The success of a Leadership Development, however, lies in the power of self-motivation it creates for developing leaders.
Another Way To Approach Leadership Development
Leadership is effective when a company is running smoothly and everything in that business collaborates efficiently with the environment. Experts say this kind of collaborative atmosphere is only possible when the leader is motivated towards moving the business forward to achieving the company’s higher purpose vision and has high expectations for potential success.
Various studies have shown that leadership development programs that include the idea of self-motivation and personal development are extremely effective in aligning the leader’s values and goals with those of the organization.
Many leaders, that were once effective leaders, are no longer effective because they forget what it’s like to be motivating and inspiring. These leaders lose motivation and they lose the drive to inspire others to feel motivated. When there is a lack of motivation to carry out a goal, it’s easy for leaders to ultimately give up. Often, they live their lives full of regrets and unfinished goals.
It’s time for a change! To revolutionize leadership, those who carry out leadership development must identify those motivating factors that inspire and influence participants. The excitement of the process will be a source of motivation for themselves. Being excited and motivated to make a difference, is the biggest way for leaders to alleviate negative emotions and increase confidence. Without negativity and limiting beliefs, they have a clearer thought process and can see things in a positive light.
Leadership Development Helps People Find Their Inner Leaders
Personal problems and limiting internal truths often keep people from becoming the leaders they should be. It is therefore important that you speak to current leadership challenges when you are creating and implementing a leadership development training program. This will motivate them towards meeting their personal and the company’s objectives.
For instance, you can let them know it’s perfectly fine to slow down and move at a comfortable pace. Competitiveness can be healthy for attaining goals, but there are going to be times when someone becomes overwhelmed and needs a break. This is when leaders should allow others to finish before them.
Empowering Comments Welcome
You are welcome to keep us updated on what you are doing to build a collaborative team environment.
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: Why Is Investing In A Leadership Development Program A Good Idea? @ The Safe Life Revolution Podcast
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