Natalie Schneider Leadership

Archive for the ‘leadership development’ Category

Leadership is vital for any organization’s sustained success. A great leader at top makes a big difference to his or her organization. Everyone will concur with these statements. Experts in human resources field mention the importance of leaders at all levels, and not just that of the leadership at the top. Rightly so. It is not without reason that companies like 3M, Proctor & Gamble, GE, Coca Cola, HSBC etc. have known to put in place processes for developing leaders continuously.

Mention this subject, however, to a line manager, or to a sales manager, or any executive in most organizations and you will probably deal with diffident responses.

Leadership development -a strategic need?

The subject of leadership is dealt with in a general way by many organizations. Leadership is usually understood in terms of personal attributes such as charisma, communication, inspiration, dynamism, toughness, instinct, etc., and not in terms what good leaders can do for their

Leadership Development is any thing that we do in a planned and repetitive practice to build or develop leadership skills and traits. The overall purpose is to improve the quality of leadership and enhance leadership effectiveness. This includes formal training at the graduate or undergraduate level, specific programs developed by organizations, courses implemented in corporate environments or military and law enforcement training.

These programs are designed to focus on those qualities in an individual or team that are proven to reflect strong leadership. Courses like this will build and hone those skills in an effort to produce a more effective and efficient leader.

Many qualities in an individual lend themselves well toward good leadership. Some people are born with strong skills and traits that make them natural-born leaders but time and testing has discovered that most leadership skills can be learned and developed in anyone who is willing to take the time and make the effort to learn and practice.

As usual, the first step in developing any learned skill is education. Once we know and fully understand what makes a competent leader, it makes the process that much easier. There is a wide variety of study courses designed to help us do this. The most important part of developing strong leadership however, is dependent upon the action we take and effort that is put toward putting this knowledge into practice. Knowing and doing are two widely different things. Developing true leadership requires sustained action until the techniques become habit.

How successful an individual can become in leadership roles is dependent upon those persons learning abilities, the teacher or source of the information and the environment that the student will learn and practice the techniques. The rate at which one can become effectively trained as a leader will also depend on many of the individuals existing skills and behavioral attributes. Some of the more prominent traits that lend themselves well to leadership learning are self-confidence (not to be confused with arrogance,) self-esteem (not to be confused with conceit), communication skills, positive attitude and self-discipline.

The most effective leadership programs will be the ones that focus on sustained efforts over a long period and a broad scope of developmental training. They will focus on applied learning through taking action and actually practicing and monitoring the growth in real world scenarios. Since leadership deals primarily with your effectiveness in working with real people and real situations, confining your learning to classroom can only produce limited results.

Good leadership training will allow the individual to put his or her skills to test in real environments where leadership is truly needed and beneficial. Situations that work best are ones that require a leader to rely on communication, taking responsibilities, developing effective plans to reach specific goals, taking action, providing motivation and achieving real world results.

Sometimes the best training is simply filling the role and applying a proactive approach to learning and applying the best practices. It is up to you to acquire the training or practice that you need to develop yourself into a great leader. Learn everything that you can and practice what you learn often.

There is no shortage of leadership experts. Peruse a list of what various coaches, consultants and trainers offer and you’ll find many different subjects, but they all seem to have something like “and leadership” somewhere in the mix. Browse the shelves in your library or favorite bookstore for books on leadership and you’ll find no shortage of volumes on the subject. In fact, a search of the word “leadership” on Amazon.com returns 81,285 titles. So, there are plenty of answers available. But are you asking the right questions. Here are 6 questions you should ask about leadership development in your organization. With these questions, and maybe a couple of your own, you can narrow that search.

1. What do we really need? Are we looking for one-time training for a person who has a problem or do we need something a little more robust? If we need something for just one individual, why? Is it really just an issue with one person or does that issue indicate a more organization-wide problem? No single shot or short-term effort will produce lasting results. First time supervisors and managers need a different level of training than executives.

2. Are we, as an organization, taking leadership development seriously, or is it a hit and miss proposition? Should we have a leadership development program that is part of the organization’s culture?

3. How complex should our leadership development program be? Are we trying to create professors or practitioners?

4. Do we have a sufficient pool of more senior leaders who can be mentors? If not, what do we need to do to develop those senior leaders?

5. What is the best delivery method? Will an on-line type training program really meet our needs? Can we depend on people in the organization to actually accomplish training programs on-line? Would real-time, in-person training be more beneficial and provide a better return on our training investment?

6. If there is already a leadership program in place, is it effective? Does the program provide real training with follow-up and on-going support or does it seem like a bottomless pit into which we’re constantly throwing money to buy the latest thing?

When you have seriously considered these questions you’ll be in a much better position to critically evaluate the many options that are available. Note that these questions refer to a leadership development program. Developing leaders is an on-going effort, not a one-shot requirement to be accomplished with a single seminar or motivational book. Leadership development should be part of your organization’s culture. Is it?