Many organizations invest a great deal in ensuring they have the best possible Leadership Development Programs – leadership is, after all, a key driver of success. It’s vital that we use a quality programme, pitched at the right level. For this reason, many organizations utilize one of the prestigious Business Schools, who certainly do a great job in meeting this requirement.
However, traditional leadership programmes often fail to deliver expected results. New leadership practices fail to take hold. If this is the case in your organization, you need to ask yourself these questions:
- Do you choose the provider based mostly on their reputation in the market? Nothing wrong with doing this, but are they the best fit for your organization?
- Does the Programme only include the formal course, and work and activities that go with this, or is there a well-defined plan for post training activities?
- Is the Programme developed or sourced by assessing the individual’s gaps? This is often necessary, but it is really more important to get a deep understanding of the environmental challenges the leader will face in your organization.
- Does the programme align well to the business strategy? Leadership requirements can vary depending on the maturity of the organization, and the need for innovation.
- Do you have well defined career paths? And what is your process for choosing “high potentials” who will participate in the development programme.
- Have the values of the organization been internalized by the candidate? Often a new recruit or individual promoted into leadership ranks has had no input into determining the values. Do they even understand what they mean in the context of your organization? Are they able to “live” them?
- Does the individual in the programme have a very clear understanding of how they will be expected to apply the knowledge back on the job? Who will monitor this? Will they have a coach to assist them?
- Do you provide tools that new leaders can use to implement the techniques they have learned, and are resources available for refresher training.
- Are you able to determine the Return on Investment in the Development Programme? Are retention rates in the leader’s department reduced? Is staff engagement improved? Do you have the tools to measure this?
- Do developing leaders want to restructure too often? This could mean that they change things without thinking it through in the first place.
- Does the developing leader want to embrace all the newest management trends, without considering the impact on the company and whether it will help the business meet its strategic goals?
- Are they able to keep sight of individual employees’ perspectives? Do they convey a sense of purpose and progress to the employees?
- And finally, are these new leaders able to clearly articulate the organizations goals, and stay on course to achieve these?
If you have answered “Yes” to most of these questions, then your Leadership Development programme is spot on. If you answered “No” to three or more, then you really need to redesign the programme.
To assist you with setting up a Leadership Development Programme with Coaching that meets the requirements of your organization, contact us.