| |
| |
|
Management Information |
|
|
|
3 Steps You Can Use Developing Leaders In Your Industry
With the economy bordering on a recession, every company is looking for ways to increase revenues while decreasing costs. Some companies believe one of the easiest ways to do this is to cut their employee training budget. However, businesses interested in long-term viability recognize that to be successful they must continually develop their people, especially their leaders. According to recent research by the American Society of Training and Development companies with regular employee training consistently outperform companies who do not train their people. In a recent survey we conducted of HR Directors at small, Chicago-based, start-up companies leadership development was reported as their number one professional challenge. There are many books, seminars and prepackaged programs that claim to help you do this more effectively and efficiently. Most have varying success because they are not customized to meet your company's specific needs. Canned approaches have little lasting effect. Leadership development is not about reading a book or attending a seminar. Sustained leadership development is a process. It must be tailored to meet your company's specific needs and goals to be successful. Our research indicates there are some common criteria among successful leadership development programs. The best ones promote leadership in three phases: Plan for Leadership Development. The first part of planning a leadership program is to examine what you currently have in place. In order to gauge your efforts, answer the following five questions: Does your company have a comprehensive plan for developing people? ? What are the benefits you would receive from having an effective leadership development program? ? What are the estimated costs in turnover, lower productivity, and lower morale to not having one now? ? What would a successful leadership development program look like for your company? ? How much time, energy, and money are you willing to invest to develop one? The next planning step is to begin identifying characteristics of people who are already successful leaders in your company. Every company has a unique corporate structure and culture that rewards particular characteristics. The key to building a successful program begins with looking at successful people. Think about the people who are or have been most successful at your company and ask: ? What kind of training experiences have they had? ? What kind of educational background do your most successful people have? ? How many years of experience in your line of work do they have? ? How do they fit in with your corporate culture? ? How would you describe their personality style? What best motivates them? Practice Leadership Development. Once you have formed an outline of how you want to develop your leaders and what "success" looks like, you must start implementing the program. Start small, with one or two people. This will allow you to work out the bugs inconspicuously. There are different ways to begin the program, but nearly all successful ones have at least two clear parts: specific leadership training and coaching/mentoring. The training can include elements of: ? Effective business communication ? Conflict resolution skills ? Team building ? Relating to different personality styles ? Time management ? Delegation skills ? Goal setting ? Critical coaching skills ? Other areas specific to your business The second part is coaching or mentoring. All of the top professional and Olympic athletes recognize the importance of a personal coach to help them reach peak performance. A mentor or coach can provide your leaders with the one-on-one attention needed to help take them to the next level quickly. Most organizations use some form of sales to drive their product or services. In many of these businesses the sales team leader is the one who does the coaching or mentoring. The majority of these sales leaders are in a position of leadership because they were good at selling. Unfortunately, there is not a direct correlation between being a good salesman and being a good coach or leader. Many leaders have some natural tendencies: they train others how they were trained, they try to motivate other according to how they are motivated, and they tend to miss-focus their energies. Even the best intentioned sales leaders often display a subtle tendency to focus on two groups of people: the employees who are top performers and those who are under performing. The average performers are usually left to fend for themselves. If sales leaders are aware of this natural tendency, they can usually self-correct it. With some additional coaching, it is easier to help the average performer become a top performer than it is to transform the under performer. When you have developed a comprehensive training program you can strategize about where your investment of time will result in the best ROI. An effective mentor or coach can help decrease learning curves. Many businesses have a learning curve in which people at the front of the curve significantly under perform the people at the top of the curve. For example, if you realize that it takes a new sales associate 12 to 18 months to start really performing, 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 to optimal performance from 12-18 months to 6-8 months? Promote Leadership Development. Once you have refined your program by working with a couple of leaders it's time to start promoting the program. ? Start by making it known during the interview process with potential employees. Many small company's use their leadership development program to draw in high-potential applicants that otherwise would go to larger organizations. ? Sell your leadership training program to applicants by telling them (and showing them) how invested you are in helping them develop as a leader. The kind of people who do well in small to medium-sized businesses are keenly aware of the importance of self-development. These people will be impressed that you want to make an investment in them. ? Start highlighting successful characteristics to your current employees and draw attention to the employees that are doing well. Be careful to point out that your goal is for every employee to be their best. ? Work hard not to create an atmosphere of cut-throat competition where one person can win only when another loses. Show every employee how they can succeed. ? Use your leaders to coach others and consider bringing in an outside coach to help your leaders coach their employees more effectively. Summary Leadership training is absolutely critical to the success of business, especially small to medium sized companies. One of the mantras of the 1990's human potential movement was "people are our most valuable asset." There was a lot of verbal acknowledgement of this truth, but not a lot of companies acted on it. Smart companies are beginning to recognize that leadership development and people training is a process, not an event and this process has bottom line results. For companies looking to increase their revenues and cut their costs, leadership development is a must. Over the long run companies who develop their leaders and train their people significantly outperform companies who do not. Stephen Fairley, M.A., RCC is the President of Today's Leadership Coaching, a premier executive coaching and training firm, and a Registered Corporate Coach (RCC). Today's Leadership Coaching focuses on "Developing Leaders Who Deliver Results." You can contact him at 630-588-0500 or at Stephen@TodaysLeadership.com © 2001 by Stephen Fairley. All rights reserved. Please contact author for reprints
MORE RESOURCES:
Management - Google News |
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
How to Fire an Employee One of the most difficult tasks you will face as a business owner will be firing employees. Employees who consistently break the rules, do not perform the functions of their job, or cause difficulties for your business can be a strain on the work environment, your cash flow, and even disrupt your business from thriving and performing as expected. Five Ways to Turn Resistance into Opportunity Resistance. It isn't something people cherish or enjoy encountering. Accountability Equals Meeting Success Leslie was the new manager of the group. She was replacing Tom, a well respected manager who was retiring. How to do SWOT Analysis for your Business SWOT analysis is needed for all business to understand how to improve their business.To have best SWOT Analysis we use below methodSWOT on Strengths that you can use for improving your business. Lessons From Innovative Companies What do the companies 3M, Polaroid, and Walt Disney have in common? All have innovation in their blood. All encourage an innovative spirit at every level of their organization. Recruitment - What Youre Really, Really Looking For Imagine that you're a sports coach and you need a new player on the team. Would you walk up to someone in the street and say - "I want you to come and play for my team. Smart Choices: How to Hire the Best Your organization's continued growth and success depend on making smart choices and hiring the best. Today's economy is exploding with talent, allowing you to be selective about the staff you hire. Your Appraisal System Can Be Better - Overcome These Nine Serious Failings This article is directed at senior managers. As a senior colleague you have the authority to make tremendous improvements. Improving Your Inter-Company Communications At No Cost It's all very well having a flashy (and expensive) advertising campaign, backed up by a wealth of positive PR, but if your staff are not all pulling in the same direction this could be the biggest leak in your plan.Want a more in-depth guide to internal and customer communications, plus a CD-ROM with software with advice, additional content and links to helpful sites?Buy 'Marketing your Business' todayFirstly, everyone need to be able to get accurate information, so ensure that you have a good computer network (or better still, a fully-fledged Intranet) and routinely store the latest versions of documents where everyone can access them. 3 Steps You Can Use Developing Leaders In Your Industry With the economy bordering on a recession, every company is looking for ways to increase revenues while decreasing costs. Some companies believe one of the easiest ways to do this is to cut their employee training budget. How Your Feelings and Those of Your Employees Can Make The Difference How we feel is really more important than what we know. This is because how we feel plays a bigger role in our behavior than knowing what we should or should not do. Knowledge Management - Keys to Successful Communities of Practice (Networks) How can I make my community of practice truly effective?How can I prevent my network becoming a "notwork"?Communities of practice (networks) lie at the heart of successful knowledge management in most organisations. They are the lifeblood of informal exchanges of knowledge. Difficult Staff - It Pays To Get To Know Them Better It's very easy for a business owner or manager to fall into the trap of condemning one of their team as a no-hoper or a problem child.It may turn out that this person shouldn't be on your team however as Abraham Lincoln once said about someone he had a problem with - "I don't think I like that man, I must get to know him better. Joint Accountability: Another Key for Your Effectiveness I once was part of a group of management professors who often taught in executive development seminars. Other non-management professors in the school ran these. Action Learning: Its More Than OJT For centuries companies have used on-the-job training (OJT). OJT works because it follows much of what we know about adult learning theory. Delegate or Die! You Can't Do It All - Learning To DelegateThere is not a single management skill more critical to your personal and professional success as an entrepreneur than learning to delegate. But delegating successfully is much more than simply handing out assignments. The Ivory Tower Syndrome "His cardinal mistake is that he isolates himself, and allows nobody to see him; and by which he does not know what is going on in the very matter he is dealing with. - Abraham Lincoln on his reason for relieving Gen. Change Behaviors, Change Performance Every organization is looking for the holy grail of performance enhancement, that one thing that, if it were changed even slightly, would push the productivity of a company way beyond the current level.Over the years there have been many solutions offered to the performance conundrum, from process improvement and process re-engineering to rightsizing and quality initiatives. Balancing Power in Outsource Contract Agreements The practice of outsourcing business processes has long been subject to the discussion how best to ensure optimal benefits for both parties involved in the outsource agreement.In conventional outsource agreements conflict often arises between the objective to minimize cost and the necessity to continually develop the service. Innovation Management - forced into it! Creativity can be defined as problem identification and idea generation whilst innovation can be defined as idea selection, development and commercialisation.There are distinct processes that enhance problem identification and idea generation and, similarly, distinct processes that enhance idea selection, development and commercialisation.
|
| home | site map |
| © 2006 |