CADCA

In today’s hyper-competitive world, private, public and nonprofit organizations want to develop leaders who are more capable, more effective and stronger in the difficult work they do. That’s why they invest in a leadership development program for their top professionals by sending them to leadership seminars or workshops and hiring consultants to work with them to change their corporate culture leadership program. Today’s times and issues are more challenging and leaders in organizations find themselves searching for innovative solutions for the challenges they face to support the decisions they make and the actions they take. Leadership development consultants have to be more prepared than ever to work with senior-level executives and managers who face complex problems and operate in high-pressure work environments to support transformation of change.

Most companies use some form of sales to drive their products or services. In many of these companies, the sales team leader does the coaching or mentoring. Most of these sales leaders are in a position of leadership because they were great at selling. Unfortunately, there is not a direct relationship between being a great salesman and being a great coach or leader. Many leaders have some natural tendencies for training others how they were trained and motivate others according to how they are motivated, which can lead to a loss of focus for their energy. 

Even the most successful sales leaders often display a slight tendency to focus on two groups of people: the employees who are top performers and the employees who are under performing. This leaves the average performers to fend for themselves. If sales leaders are mindful of this normal tendency, they can usually modify this tendency and start a transformation of change in their corporate culture. With some coaching, it is easier to transform an average performer to a top performer than it is to transform the under performer. When you develop a comprehensive training program, you can strategize where our investment of time will result in the best Return on Investment for your company. 

An effective mentor or consultant can help reduce learning curves. Many companies have a learning curve for which employees at the front of the curve significantly underperform the employees at the top of the curve. A great example is if you realize that it takes a new sales associate 9 to 12 months to show true performance, how much would it be worth to your company to dedicate a leader to spending one-on-one time coaching with new sales associates if that coaching could decrease their time for optimal performance from 9-12 months to 3-6 months?

Once you have made your Plan for Leadership Development, the next step is forming an outline of how you plan to develop the leaders in your company and what "success" looks like for your corporate culture. You must start implementing the program as soon as the leaders are identified. Start small, with one or two people, to work out the bugs subtly. There are multiple ways to begin the Leadership Transformation Program, but nearly all successful programs have at least two clear parts: coaching/mentoring and specific leadership training. The training can include elements of

• Conflict Resolution Skills
• Critical Coaching Skills
• Delegation Skills
• Effective Business Communication
• Generational Differences & Personality Styles
• Goal Setting
• Team Building
• Time Management
• Other Areas That are Specific to Your Business

The following Six Best Practices are Common to highly successful Leadership Development Program Initiatives.

1. Alignment with Business Strategy.
Leadership development is much more than management training. As leaders move up in an organization, their skills must transform from focusing on people and project management to focusing on strategic business and operations management.

2. Comprehensive and Ongoing Approach.
A sound leadership development program does not consist solely of an instructor-led training event. Effective Programs must include developmental assignments, assessments with metrics, meetings with counterparts, case studies, and a wide variety of e-learning to give leaders a complete experience. Leaders learn to lead by doing, so the best leadership development programs rely heavily on experiential learning.

3. Customized Leadership Competencies.
Successful leadership development programs are based on distinctive leadership competencies. By isolating and deciding what leadership competencies are most important to your business, you will have the foundation for leadership development, as well as career development, through a talent-related process for succession planning.

4. Integrate with Talent Management.
To build a sustainable leadership channel, organizations must implement programs to measure leadership potential through a performance management process, identify successors to existing leaders, and place these individuals into the right development programs as part of a regular business practice. Develop established practices and a corporate culture that encourages development throughout the organization.

5. Strong Executive Commitment.
The most important step is to obtain the engagement of top leaders and managers. Getting this commitment means that the program will be highly valued, aligned with overall business strategy, and focused on the right business issues.

6. Target All Levels of Leadership.
While the term “leadership” may not seem to apply to all employees, we find that high-impact programs have elements that apply to every level of management.

The above represents a great set of leadership development practices to use in your leadership development programs. As leadership talent becomes more limited, developing people from within the company becomes more important. What are you doing to develop the leaders of tomorrow for your team?