Tag Archives: Leadership Training

Leadership

Leadership Development – A Simple Guide

Leadership development is an industry. A big industry! And yet I don’t know of a country in which it is regulated (if I am wrong, contact me and I will correct that statement). So, you pay your money and you take your chances.

Having said all of that, leadership development is big because it is important and at least some of it works. I know!

Here I will unravel some of the alternatives and the issues relating to the development of leaders, and help you find your way through. I will present you with a number of choices, in the hope that you might be able to decide which approach is good for you.

First, a health warning. Leadership development covers a range of learning methods, the best of which are designed to help you to build on the leadership skills qualities that you already possess.

If you hear of “Leadership Training” it might just be a very basic, taught programme that doesn’t take account of your existing strengths. Find out whether they include any form of self or peer assessment.

Group or individual development

A whole range of leadership development activities use group learning techniques. These include training courses, degree programmes, virtual classrooms, seminars, workshops, etc.

These are great if you enjoy learning in a group – if you feel comfortable contributing and learning from others’ experiences. As leadership involves other people, it is difficult to develop your leadership confidence if you don’t involve others at some point in your learning. The best group based programmes use group exercises and give you opportunities to practice leadership skills. They also have plenty of chance to give and receive feedback.

Individual development covers one-to-one coaching and self-development activities (eg, reading, workbooks, e-learning).

E-learning has come a long way in the last few years and there are some great materials around. Similarly, there are some very good e-books on the market.

These techniques are very focused on you and your needs and they progress at your own pace. But self-study alone can not provide you with the practice and feedback that you might need to build your leadership confidence.

My recommendation? Find a leadership development programme that offers elements of both group and individual learning. Perhaps some workshops or course modules with self-study and one-to-one coaching built in or with coaching as an add-on. But choose elements that are focused on your needs rather than a sheep dip, or one size fits all, approach.

Academic or vocational

Academic programmes are those that are based upon the learning of theory, or upon new research that extends the body of knowledge. They are mainly cognitive or cerebral (to do with the head) and lead to academic qualifications, such as university degrees.

Vocational programmes are more practical in their nature and are concerned with the application of learning to real situations. They tend to focus on skills and less on theory, although they can also lead to vocational qualifications.

Actually, the “or” in the title is not clear cut. Some university degrees are vocational in nature. In the world of management and leadership, the Master of Business Administration degree (MBA) is an obvious example. However, there will still be a large amount of academic / intellectual / theory in any degree programme.

Many organisations run vocational leadership programmes, or corporate leadership training scheme, for their leaders. Some also offer routes to academic programmes for those who do well on vocational ones.

My recommendation? Think carefully about what you want and how you learn best. If you want to develop practical skills – opt for a vocational programme. If you want to understand the theoretical basis of leadership first, look for a suitable academic course of study.

Bespoke or open programmes

A bespoke leadership development programme is one that is designed and developed around the identified learning needs of the employing organisation and the participants. They tend to be run “in-company”.

An open programme sells places to participants from different employers. You can find yourself alongside people from many different contexts. Open programmes are sometimes run “in-company” – but sometimes with little or no modification beforehand.

If it is just you wanting to learn on a group based programme, you will probably have to find an open programme. Unless of course your powers of persuasion as such that you can get your employer to commission a bespoke programme.

Open programmes can have two key advantages. They offer the chance to learn from people from other organisations, to benchmark yourself and to look beyond the familiar. They are also relatively anonymous! You can make your mistakes away from your friends and colleagues.

But some open programmes are not always very sharply focussed. And unless they are chosen around your own needs, they can be frustrating. This is were “bespoke is best” – providing of course that the trainer is any good. A good bespoke programme can offer direct, relevant and directly transferable learning that you can take straight back to work.

My recommendation? Go for bespoke if it is available. If not, ask the providers of the open programme about the programme objectives and compare these with what you wish to learn. Then ask them what steps they will take to identify and address your individual learning needs. If you are happy with the answers, then ask if they will refer you to a past participant who can tell you about their experiences.

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Leadership

Leadership Analytics

Maintaining the leadership pool is a challenging task for an organization and its top leaders. There are a number of activities, as well as developmental exercises, that can be undertaken to grow leadership at every level within the organization. But how can organizational leaders measure leadership? And, more importantly, what analytics can be used to ensure that leadership talent is used efficiently and appropriately? Let’s look at some broad categories of leadership analytics.

First, behavioral profiling is an excellent analytical tool. There are two ways to approach behavioral analytics for leaders. First, you can identify behavioral characteristics of well-known leaders, either in the world at large or within the organization itself. These general characteristics can be used as a “yardstick” for leadership development and leadership measurement. There are many sources of popular leadership profiles, but how can you profile within the organization? Myers-Briggs type indicators are one example. A certified Myers-Briggs consultant can assess leaders, name their “types”, and help the organization build profiles, communication plans, and job-specific characteristics – and use these items as leadership analytics.

Along with behavioral profiling, the organization can make use of leadership assessment from the “other end”. What makes people within the organization successful? If this cannot be defined, those “high performers” can be profiled with their own characteristics. For example, if your organization has not used leadership analytics in the past, identify people at every level who seem to excel at their jobs, have a “following”, and who have consistently proven their worth to the organization and its vision. Take the time to interview these people to determine how they’ve accomplished a successful rise. The data you gather can be used to measure individuals and also to measure what characteristics tend to work within the organization itself.

Analysis of teams is also an excellent analytical tool. There are a couple of ways to go with teams, as well. If your organization is already in the process of formal leadership development, consider bringing the pool together in order to break them into teams and give them “real” organizational problems to solve. Observe how the teams work together, as well as how each individual contributes to the solution or the project. You’ll be able to create an analytical profile of team success at the organization from your observations. If you’re not conducting formal development, consider observing project teams specifically for the purpose of identifying leadership characteristics. What personal and team characteristics tend to propel the team forward, and what characteristics tend to mire the team down? As you record your data, you’ll also see a profile developing.

From the human resources standpoint, benchmarking individual roles for leadership characteristics is also an effective analysis tool. Examine individual jobs within the organization and first determine which incumbents have been “successful” at the job and which ones have had less than stellar performances. From that determination, you can look at individual behaviors that contribute to success within a particular job or role. Conduct this type of analysis at every level of the organization and measure incumbents and job candidates using the metrics you’ve discovered in your initial analysis. This type of role analytics can help the organization create individual leadership profiles for each job and for the organization as a whole.

Leadership training and development in itself can be used as an analytical tool. The program you develop will help you identify high potential and high performing leaders at every level. But along with this comes the ability to identify the organizational players that have the potential to develop – and those who simply do not. Using this analytic, you can begin to develop the “middle road” or “B” organizational players into top-level leaders. And you can begin to exit those non-performers or “C” level players at the same time. All of the analytics we’ve discussed can be part of your leadership development program. For example, you can conduct analysis of behaviors, leadership characteristics, team performance, and even roles within the context of the leadership development program.

Each broad area of analysis leads you to a set of measurements or analytics that can be used to measure existing leadership and to create a leadership goal within the organization. Not only this, these broad areas of analysis can also create a leadership profile by which you measure job candidates at every level, both internally and externally. Take the time to determine which analytics will work for you organization and begin to measure your leadership talent.

Copyright 2009 Bryant Nielson. All Rights Reserved.

Bryant Nielson – Learning & Development Expert – assists executives, business owners, and top performing sales executives in taking the leap from the ordinary to extraordinary. Bryant is a trainer, business & leadership coach, and strategic planner for many sales organizations. Bryant’s 27 year business career has been based on his results-oriented style of empowering.

Subscribe to his blog at: [http://www.BryantNielson.com]

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Bryant_Nielson/142446

 

Leadership

How Leadership Training Develops Strong Business Leadership Skills

Leadership training must evolve beyond programs of improving basic business leadership skills. While discussing the fundamentals of delegation, running meetings, “motivating” employees and public speaking may be OK for newly minted supervisors, it’s really inadequate for the majority of professionals who rely on executive management training to survive in their leadership positions.

If you do not think we need to change our leadership training strategies, here are a few reasons why we should. Our world enjoys a level playing field which empowers billions of people to attain greater prosperity. At the same time, more people are acquiring and improving their business leadership skills through formal educational programs or their own informal development efforts.

The many advances made in computing, communications and other commercialization technologies offer everybody opportunities to quickly develop and sell their ideas. As improvements in the physical technology arenas continue to capture media attention, most business leadership skills courses and leadership training endeavors fail to improve our expertise in applying social technology.

Some people call this period of human history, the Age of Knowledge, yet still others, like me, say it is the Imagination Age. Indeed, we even find ourselves questioning deeply-held priorities, like our use of natural, human and man-made resources, in response to ever-increasing social pressures.

However, leadership training programs, especially in today’s competitive economy, should prepare executives, management candidates and entrepreneurs to energize their business leadership skills in such areas as:

=> Innovation strategy development
=> Talent management and human capital enrichment
=> Technology portfolio designs and analysis
=> Business systems requirements and analysis
=> Coaching, facilitation and consulting techniques
=> Value-oriented analytics and engineering principles

 

All these subjects and others can help you boost growth and improve your performance on the “bottom-line”. But more importantly, directors, executives and managers who work in non profits, a governmental agency or a service organization simply do not understand the contributions of those same subjects to their future success.

When selecting your next leadership training, business leadership skills or executive management training program use the following three tips.

Tip-1 – What Philosophy Is Being Promoted?

Any leadership training program attempts to help you discover the nature, causes and principles associated with the reality of leading, applying the knowledge base of leadership and the reasoning used by leaders.

That statement defines the philosophy of most leadership development programs. However, it’s up to you to assess, measure and comprehend the scope, depth and intensity of your leadership training courses. You do have to evaluate when the needs of your business leadership skills are not being served by your executive management training program.

Tip-2 – How Does This Leadership Training Strategy Work for You?

These days there quite a few numbers of effective, efficient and efficacious educational techniques, delivery systems and program support strategies available to you.

Obviously, you will want to use your schedule, your learning style preferences and your personal as well as your professional requirements to gauge your leadership training options.

Your business leadership skills will be strengthened, sharpened and stimulated if you employ a long-term (6-12 months or longer) executive management training regimen.

Tip-3 – Why Will These Activities Energize Your Business Leadership Skills?

An excellent leadership training program will include classroom or instructor-led, self-directed or home-study and in-service learning activities. Involving this variety of learning situations increases the energy levels of your business leadership skills.

In other words, the doing, dissecting and developing of your leadership performances enables you to more effectively absorb your ‘lessons’ physically, mentally, spiritually, emotionally and psychologically. That’s why world-class organizations give their promising performers executive management training for 2, 3 or more years.

Finally, the last and most critical “Tips” I will share with you are these –

Search for an executive management training program that adds richness, texture, luster, power and scope to the depth, capacity, value, quality and competency of your business leadership skills and experiences on a daily basis!

Invest in leadership training that will help you realize the ideals, opportunities and goals described in these Tips and you will make outstanding contributions to your organization, to your community and to our world.

Copyright © 2008, Mustard Seed Investments Inc., All Rights Reserved Worldwide.

Bill Thomas is the author of books, video, and CD-ROM programs, he conducts executive leadership training programs for Awesome Leaders and Innovative Leaders.

Bill helps professionals, managers, supervisors, executives, entrepreneurs, and directors in 75 countries improve their performance by providing in-depth, results-driven leadership development, coaching, and consulting support.

Sign up and receive Bill’s leadership “Power-Tips”, read free ebooks and articles, listen to his weekly radio programs, and get free educational white papers. Bill guarantees his cost-effective services will maximize the returns on your investment.

Awesome Leadership Training Programs and Leadership-Toolkit – Leadership Skills Training

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Bill_Thomas/462

 

Leadership

Leadership Training Concepts

Leadership training is imparted to individuals who wish to excel in their particular fields of business. There are many important ingredients of any leadership training. It aims to teach skills like time management, management assessment, management skill assessment, executive assessment, management consulting, and other such skills.

There are various leadership training concepts and methods that are employed by those who train people in leadership. Most of the methods are either devised by the faculty themselves for their own training courses or are common ones that are used everywhere. These common leadership training concepts include effective listening where the individuals are taught the benefit of improving their listening skills and building trust with all the parties concerned-including internal people as well as business partners. Other benefits include enlightened leadership skills, future trend analysis in order to stay ahead of the competition, integrated development to improve the functionality of the management, and the like.

Apart from this, various new and improved concepts about business and marketing are also discussed and shared in leadership training programs. These include concepts that involve organizational intelligence, a purpose-driven approach, strategic thinking, and debunking the leadership vision myth.

Many training institutes and courses develop their own leadership training concepts and methodology. The need for this arises because with the changing times since leadership trainings have to undergo certain changes so that they can keep pace with the needs and demands of a modern business and working environment.

Surveys and research conducted by various organizations have proved that leadership training concepts taught in the training programs have made a huge impact on the lives and behavior of the individuals and has meant the difference between success and failure for a lot of organizations.

It is for this reason that any organization that is serious about doing business and growing in the competitive environment cannot afford to ignore leadership training and the various concepts that they teach in such programs. The potential of every individual can be realized only through these programs.

Leadership Training [http://www.WetPluto.com/Corporate-Leadership-Training.html] provides detailed information on Leadership Training, Leadership Development Training, Corporate Leadership Training, Leadership Skill Training and more. Leadership Training is affiliated with Leadership Development [http://www.WetPluto.com/Leadership.html].

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Thomas_Morva/44492