HR & Consulting
Leadership Training For Employees: Best Practices
Developing leaders within the organisation has obvious benefits.
From lowering the overhead costs to having loyal and able resources in leadership positions, organisations have been enjoying the fruits of leadership development for many years.
However, the future of work and business is undergoing a rapid change. Combine that with the changes in the way humans learn, and it is easy to realise the traditional approaches of leadership development are no longer relevant.
Modern leadership development must adapt to the rapid changes happening in the business landscape.
When training your ‘super-employees’ to become future leaders at your organisation, make sure you employ the following best practices:
Use The Right Technology
Technology continues to revolutionise countless aspects of the way companies do business and employee training is no exception.
Elearning technology has turned employee training from a necessity to an accessible advantage. Tools like the learning management system have simplified the requirements for providing employees with an immersive and impactful training experience.
For instance, Mindflash LMS offers the ability to store and distribute training content on the cloud. Now, this may sound like a daunting undertaking, especially to those who are not particularly adept with technology. However, Mindflash LMS allows users to simplify and customise the user interface to suit their technical level and training needs.
Focus On Developing Soft Skills
Often, professional development is tied with development of technical or ‘hard’ skills that are glaringly relevant to the employee’s current and future roles.
While there is no denying that developing existing skills and learning new ones is important, the same is true for soft skills. However, these are often overlooked by organisations investing in employee training.
This can prove to be a grave mistake, especially in the case of leadership development. Soft skills are perhaps the most radical factor that separates managers and bosses from leaders.
Start Delegating Early
Learning on the job is still one of the most effective ways to learn, and now, there is scientific proof to back this claim.
To develop effective leaders, it is important to give them a taste of what to expect before the real job begins. Early delegation also allows learners to implement their newfound knowledge in practical scenarios, improving the overall impact of training.
Finally, the most important reason to start delegating new tasks to your future leaders early is that the ability to successfully manage multiple tasks and the associated stress is a soft skill that cannot be learnt without practice.
Develop A Strong Feedback Mechanism
Feedback is the backbone of any successful training effort. Without feedback, a learner is just as lost as someone that only has access to books and resources but no access to guidance.
Lack of constructive and carefully imparted feedback can have devastating effects when it comes to leadership development.
Without proper feedback during training, your future leaders will not be equipped with the wisdom required to take progressive decisions.
That’s why, it is not just important to diligently provide feedback to your leadership development learners, but it is also important to make sure you have a structured guidance or mentoring system in place. This way, your learners can have access to real-world knowledge and honest feedback from industry leaders.
Conclusion
By leveraging the right technology, focusing on the right set of skills, and providing your learners with an engaging and holistic learning experience, the likeliness of success of your leadership development efforts is surely going to increase.
