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“Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.”- John F. Kennedy
As stated by John F. Kennedy, good leadership, and learning go hand-in-hand. A company that invests in improving its leader's leadership skills, yields the benefits. Research indicates that businesses can see an average ROI of $7 for every $1 spent on leadership development programs.
Leadership skills are often refined through continuous self-assessment & education, taking time — privately or through the contribution of Coaching & mentoring — in a leadership journey.
These three leadership development areas are usually part of leadership development initiatives to get great leaders to make effective and successful leaders.
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Why Is Leadership Development Important?
Developing leaders help a company create an environment of growth, innovation, and collaboration and drive employee engagement and performance. It also strengthens the company’s culture and builds a sense of loyalty amongst the company and its employees.
Leadership development is crucial to success in any field beyond the preferred C-suite. It can give individuals the tools to become effective leaders, confidently make decisions, inculcate the right leadership behaviors, and help others reach their potential.
The development of a leadership style and competencies helps organizations and employees build strong and cohesive teams capable of achieving success.
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10 Leadership Development Areas to Learn
When developing leaders, it is important first to analyze leadership skills and then create a framework to improve key leadership skills most important in addressing performance problems. Some of the key development areas that can be addressed include:
1. Learning Self Awareness
Self-awareness involves a deep understanding of one's strengths and weaknesses and the impact one's actions and decisions have on self-reflection on others and the work environment. Self-aware leaders can recognize their biases and emotions and manage them effectively to make sound decisions and create a positive working environment.
Training and focus on self-awareness enables leaders to:
Reflect on their experiences: A leader learns how to regularly reflect on positive and negative experiences; consider what worked well and what could have been done differently, and think about the underlying reasons for their actions and decisions. This ultimately makes one an effective leader.
Ask for Constructive feedback: Correctly asking for feedback from others. This can include team members and superiors. Correct feedback offers valuable insight into how you are perceived and how your actions and decisions impact others.
Practice mindfulness: Mindfulness involves being present at the moment and paying attention to your thoughts, feelings, and sensations without judgment. Regular mindfulness practice can help you become more aware of your emotions and reactions, allowing you to manage them more effectively.
Examine your values and beliefs: Take time to explore your values and beliefs, and think about how these influence your actions and decisions. Understanding your values and beliefs can help you to make choices that align with your personal goals and principles, making you a more effective leader.
In leadership, effective communication is essential for building trust and collaboration within teams and conveying goals and expectations. This involves articulating ideas clearly, actively listening to others, and being open to feedback and different perspectives.
Here are some tips for Effective communication:
Listen actively: The key elements of active listening are fully focusing on what the other person is saying and taking the time to understand their perspective and emotions. It involves not only hearing the spoken words but also paying attention to body language and tone of voice.
Be clear and concise: When communicating, clearly articulate your ideas and avoid using jargon or complex language that others may not understand. Keep your message concise and to the point, and provide examples or supporting evidence to help illustrate your point.
Ask questions: Asking open-ended questions can help to stimulate discussion and encourage others to share their thoughts and ideas. It can also help you to gain a better understanding of their perspective and concerns.
Use nonverbal communication: Nonverbal communication, such as body language and facial expressions, can often convey as much information as spoken words. Pay attention to your nonverbal cues, and try to interpret the nonverbal signals of others to understand their meaning and intent better.
The world of work is constantly evolving, and leaders must be able to adapt and lead their teams through periods of change to remain competitive and successful. This involves being able to develop strategies for managing change, as well as new skills such as managing stress and being able to communicate these effectively to team members and provide support during the transition.
Some of the tips to better manage change include:
Communicate the need for change: Communicate the reasons for the change to your team, and explain how it will benefit the organization and its members. Be transparent and honest, and be prepared to answer any questions or concerns, including change's negative consequences.
Involve your team in the change process: Good leaders Involve their team members in the change process by soliciting their input and ideas. This can help build buy-in and support for the change and provide valuable insights and actionable new ideas.
Create an action plan: Create a development plan for implementing the change, and make sure to include specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals and objectives. Communicate the plan to your team and ensure everyone knows their roles and responsibilities.
Provide support and resources: Provide your team with the support and resources they need to successfully navigate the change. This may include training, guidance, and additional resources such as technology or equipment.
Be flexible and adaptable: Be prepared to adjust the plan if needed, and be open to feedback and suggestions from your team. Change can be challenging, and it's important to be flexible and adaptable to ensure the success of the change process.
4. How to Motivate & Inspire
Part of great organizational skills for leaders is motivating other cultures on their teams to work towards achieving set goals. This means being able to communicate the importance of the other team member's goals, as well as recognizing and rewarding individual and team achievements.
Some of the tips to motivate and inspire other leaders include:
Communicate the importance of the team's goals: Clear communication on the importance of team goals and how they will benefit help team members see the bigger picture and their role in contributing to the team's success.
Recognize and reward achievements: Recognize and reward individual and team achievements publicly and privately. This can help to motivate team members to continue striving for excellence and can also help to build a positive and collaborative team culture.
Offer support and guidance: Helping employees through support and guidance can help them develop the skills and knowledge they need to succeed. This can include coaching & mentoring and providing access to resources and training.
Create a positive and collaborative team culture: Create a positive and collaborative team culture by fostering open communication, collaboration, and trust. Encourage team members to work together and support each other, and provide opportunities for them to learn from and share.
This involves being able to select and develop team members for different positions, as well as creating a positive and collaborative team culture. Effective leaders hire people who can delegate tasks and responsibilities and provide support and guidance to their team members to help them grow and develop.
Some of the tips for building and managing effective teams include:
Select the right team members: Select team members with the skills, knowledge, and attitudes necessary to succeed. This may involve conducting interviews and assessments to identify the best fit for the team before moving forward.
Offer training and development opportunities: Provide team members with training and development opportunities to help push them out of their comfort zone and improve productivity. This can include training programs, mentoring, and access to resources and networking opportunities.
Delegate tasks and responsibilities: Delegate tasks and responsibilities to team members in a way that allows them to utilize their strengths and decision-making skills. Provide guidance and support as needed, and give team members the autonomy and responsibility they need to succeed.
Developing a strong and positive organizational culture is essential for employee growth and the success of any organization, as it can help an organization improve employee morale, collaboration, and productivity and enhance the organization's reputation and competitiveness.
Some of the Tips for developing organizational culture include:
Clearly define your organization's values and goals: Clearly define your organization's values, goals, and vision. This can help establish a common purpose and direction and provide a framework for decision-making and behavior.
Model the desired behavior: As a leader, your actions and behaviors serve as a model for others in the organization. Make sure to consistently model the desired behavior and values and encourage others to do the same.
Recognize and reward positive behavior: Recognize and reward individuals and teams who exemplify the desired behavior and values. This can help to reinforce the desired culture and motivate others to adopt the same behavior.
Emotional intelligence (EI) refers to the ability to understand and manage one's emotions and those of others. It is a critical skill for effective leadership, as it can help leaders build positive relationships, communicate effectively, manage stress, and make sound decisions.
Key components of emotional intelligence include four key components of emotional intelligence: self-awareness, self-regulation, empathy, self-confidence, and social skills.
Some tips for improving Emotional Intelligence include:
Seek feedback: Ask for feedback from others, including your team members, colleagues, and superiors. This can provide valuable insight into how you are perceived and how your actions and decisions impact others.
Develop empathy: Empathy involves the ability to understand and share the emotions of others. To develop empathy, try to put yourself in others' shoes and consider how they might feel in a given situation. This can help you to build stronger, more positive relationships with your team members and colleagues.
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8. Critical Thinking
Critical thinking can help employees solve complex business problems, make better decisions, and adapt to changing business circumstances. It can also help them evaluate their effectiveness, identify improvement areas, and develop creative solutions to challenges.
Some tips for critical thinking in the Workplace include:
Seek out diverse perspectives: Encourage open communication and invite others to share their thoughts and ideas. Different ideas often create room for debate and implementing the best ideas.
Evaluate evidence: Assess the reliability and validity of information before making decisions based on it.
Ask questions: Don't be afraid to ask questions and challenge assumptions to deepen your understanding of a topic.
Be curious: Always be willing to learn more and seek out new information to expand your knowledge and improve your critical thinking skills.
Be willing to change your mind: Be open to new information and revise your thinking if it is supported by evidence.
Take your time: Don't rush to judgment; give yourself time to think through a problem and consider multiple solutions before making a decision.
Performance management is an important area of leadership development because it involves setting goals for employees, monitoring their progress, and providing feedback and support to help them improve.
Performance management is typically seen as a continuous process rather than a one-time event. This means that for most employees it involves regularly setting goals, monitoring progress, providing feedback, and adjusting strategies on an ongoing basis on issues such as communication skills poor performance, time management, and people management.
This same focus can help to ensure that the organization's goals and objectives remain aligned with the team's efforts to achieve them and that employees are continuously supported and developed.
Some of the tips for better performance management include:
Set clear goals and expectations: The first step in performance management is establishing clear goals and expectations for team members. This might involve setting specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals that align with the organization's objectives.
Monitor progress regularly: It is important to monitor team members' progress toward meeting their goals. This might involve tracking key performance indicators (KPIs) and other relevant metrics and sharing that information with team members so they can see how they are doing.
Adjust goals and strategies as needed: As the organization's needs and goals evolve, it is important to review and adjust the team's goals and strategies accordingly. This might involve setting new goals, changing the team's approach to achieving them or providing additional resources or support to help them succeed.
Support ongoing development: Effective performance management should involve ongoing support and development for team members. This might include providing training and development opportunities, regular check-ins, and progress reports to help employees stay on track and improve their skills and capabilities.
Conflicts in the workplace are commonplace. About 85% of employees experience some level of conflict to some levels. It arises from issues such as personality clashes, jealousy, differing work styles, or underlying biases due to coming from different backgrounds. This calls for training in conflict management as one of the core areas of leadership development and skills in relationship building.
Some of the tips for better conflict management include:
Before a conflict erupts(proactive approach)
Promote open communication: Make it a policy to encourage open and honest communication in the workplace. Understanding the 5cs of effective communication is a good place to start. This allows for early identification of areas of improvement before things go south.
Establish clear procedures: Deliberately, create clear guidelines and procedures on areas such as delegation, communication protocols, giving feedback, and expected productivity. This acts as a framework that all team members can follow. Moreover, you can go a step further and teach how to manage correctly, especially for junior members.
Foster a positive work environment: Team-building activities and a generally positive workplace culture are known to create psychological safety and build trust.
When faced with a conflict(reactive approach)
Identify the source: Do a Root Cause Analysis of the source of a conflict. A good place to ask is, what causes the disagreement? Once you identify, the core problem, work towards solving the challenge.
Find common ground: Look for areas where there is a common ground. For example, is there an agreement on 80% of a project being done? What can be done to resolve the touchy issues in the remaining 20%? This can assist in building rapport and shift the conversation towards finding a solution.
Focus on solutions: Avoid wasting too much on the problem, but rather explore the way forward.
Seek help if needed: If you're struggling to resolve the conflict on your own with a team member, consider involving a neutral third party—who is experienced or has better leadership skills in this area— like a manager or HR representative.
Inspiring, isn’t it ? Want to learn more about connecting self-awareness to professional development? Get in touch today.
leadership development is a continuous quest that aims to achieve a well-rounded leader able to respond to workplace challenges. If this is your goal, reach out to us on how we can support personal growth for you or another leader on your team.
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AUTHOR
Andrew Langat
Andrew Langat is an experienced content specialist in Leadership, Productivity, Education, Fintech, and Research. He is an avid reader and loves swimming as a hobby. He believes that quality content should be actionable and helpful.
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