HOW TO DEVELOP LEADERSHIP SKILLS

01Five Steps To Improve Your Leadership Skills In The New Decade

A new decade has arrived, which makes it the perfect time to take a step back from the day-to-day hustle and bustle of running your business and finetune your leadership skills so your business and employees can thrive.

The speed of technological, economic and social change in the 2020s will force executives to improve how they retain and develop their most valuable asset: their employees. There's no way around it.

When I was writing my book Vitamin B (For Business), I devoted many passages to the art of leading teams to achieve company goals. While leaders decide the company's strategy, it's the attitude and actions of your team members that determine whether the business succeeds.

Here are five steps that will guide you in building your business, developing the talents of your team members and improving your leadership skills:

1. Create a sense of purpose.

As a leader, it's your responsibility to establish a work environment in which all team members embrace the company's purpose and values. When team members buy into the company's foundational principles and understand how to live them out, they're more likely to give the extra effort needed to help the company grow. If you're not doing it already, display your company's purpose, values and mission where everyone can see it so they'll be reminded of what they're working for and why it's important.

2. Achieve your company's 'Big Hairy Audacious Goal' (BHAG).

Every company should have a long-term goal (think 10-15 years) that will transform the business and that all employees can easily understand. What do you want to accomplish by the next decade? Reaching your "Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG), a term popularized by Jim Collins and Jerry I. Porras in their book Built To Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies, requires a written strategic plan that outlines the steps needed to accomplish the ultimate objective. Now is the time to review your BHAG to see if you're on track. Take a close look at the shorter-term goals in the plan to make sure they are still SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound).

3. Develop the leadership skills of your team.

Repeat after me: "I can't do it alone." You may have been wildly successful at building your businesses to this point, but in the future, your company will go only as far as the talent, drive and ideas of your team members. Make the 2020s the decade you help your team members improve their skills. Empower them to grow professionally and take on new challenges. Find money in the budget to fund professional development activities (conferences, online classes, memberships in trade organizations, etc.) for team members. The return on investment may be hard to quantify, but believe me, the increased passion and commitment will pay dividends down the road.

4. Stay on top of technology trends.

I'm not a futurist, but it's a safe bet that advances in science and technology will change how you do business this decade. Artificial intelligence, for example, has made a lasting impact on manufacturing, health care, agriculture and telecommunications. It's hard to believe that Siri and Alexa came into our lives in just the last decade.

At some time during the 2020s, your business will be disrupted by new competitors taking advantage of technology that you are not using. Enhance your leadership skills by looking for ways to stay ahead of the curve. Test new platforms and methods to deliver your product or service and manage company operations. Playing it safe is not an option.

5. Lead by example.

In my experience as an entrepreneur and business coach, I've learned one critical lesson: The leadership skills that got you this far in life will not get you to where you want to be during the next decade. Starting this year, get out of your comfort zone and challenge yourself to learn new skills. Identify three new areas of improvement and create a comprehensive list of clearly defined, measurable tasks that will lead you to achieve each goal. Your team members will likely follow suit and increase their energy and commitment when they see you learning new skills.

Steve Jobs once said, "If you are working on something that you really care about, you don't have to be pushed. The vision pulls you." Use this decade to improve your leadership skills so your vision pulls you, your team members and your company to greater success.

02

New Online Leader in Leadership Skills Emerges

Leadership Depot, an informational site, providing insights on leadership skills development.

Fort Walton Beach, FL, January 24, 2020 --(PR.com)-- Leadership Depot, a leadership skills information site, began making its presence known in late 2019. While there’s no shortage of sites providing advice to managers in business settings, this is a place where leaders or want-to-be leaders can go to glean quick insights from a group of professionals with a variety of backgrounds within different industries.

The editorial team is comprised of a small group of professionals whose backgrounds collectively include training and development management, human resources management, management consulting, hospitality management, sales management and independent business ownership.

“We have a great group willing to share some interesting insights with regards to leadership across industries,” says the head administrator Karen Scholz. “There will be articles on topics such as the characteristics of effective leaders, leadership communication, and how to create more long-term employee engagement, something that’s a constant concern for leaders wanting the most productivity from their teams. Additionally, we’ll begin featuring posts from guests with special expertise in their own verticals so that our visitors can take advantage of their unique perspectives.”

Development of leadership skills in new and existing managers, supervisors and executive teams is more important now than ever before. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there is an expected 7% growth in management occupations until the year 2028, which is faster growth than the average for all occupations. A study by Deloitte found that 86% of respondents said that developing of leadership talent was urgent for business success, yet only 13% said that they thought they did a great job preparing leaders for the job. (1) Still another survey conducted by Careerbuilder found that 58% of nearly 4000 employees across the US said that they received no training for their leadership role. (2) LeadershipDepot.com provides quick anecdotes to current leadership dilemmas; their posts are easy to scan with suggestions that are simple and can be put into practice immediately. They have different types of assessments and provide recommended training platforms and tools for the new and veteran leader alike.

For more information, visit LeadershipDepot.com.

Sources:1) www2.deloitte.com; Human Capital Trends 20142) Careerbuilder press release; Chicago, 3/2011

Contact Information:Karen Scholz850-830-3067Contact via Emailhttps://LeadershipDepot.com

Read the full story here: https://www.pr.com/press-release/804013

Press Release Distributed by PR.com

03

Setting Leadership Development Goals for the New Year

As the new year gets underway, many organizations are reassessing their leadership development goals. Of course, they’re not the only ones thinking about building better leaders. High-potential employees are busy putting a great deal of thought into their professional future and assessing the development resources available to them. In order to be successful and avoid disruptive talent gaps, high turnover, and low engagement, organizations need to find ways to provide the support these employees need. At the same time, high-potential employees need to understand what they can do to become better leaders.

What Employees Can Do

Individual employees can take proactive steps to build the leadership skills and competencies they will need to further their careers. By embracing an active approach to development, they can better prepare themselves for when opportunities present themselves.

Create a Professional Development Plan

One of the first things everyone should do is put together a professional development plan (PDP) that establishes clear goals and identifies specific actions and resources that will help to achieve them. The major advantage of a PDP is that it allows employees to target short, medium, and long term goals. This makes it easier to see how each step in their career development builds upon the previous step and pushes them closer to their longer-term objectives. Check out OnPoint Consulting’s PDP template for an example of how to create these plans.

Identify Areas of Need

Feedback is critical to leadership development because it provides information about what someone does well and where they need to improve. For aspiring leaders, receiving feedback also helps to build self-awareness and active listening skills. Some truths may be difficult to hear, but leaders need to learn how to respond to criticisms and develop action plans to address their shortcomings. Soliciting feedback from fellow team members, managers, and direct reports is a core function of effective leaders, so getting into the habit of doing so early in their career can make later development much easier.

Make the Most of Available Resources

Many organizations provide a variety of development resources for employees who want to make use of them. Too often, however, people don’t utilize these programs. While there are a variety of reasons why employees may not make the most of learning resources, it’s important for aspiring leaders to prioritize their own self-directed learning. Utilizing the training materials available to them not only helps to build the core skills and competencies they will need to succeed in leadership roles, but it also demonstrates that they are committed to their own learning and development. They should also make every effort to contact potential mentors who can guide them through the development process and provide valuable advice.

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While it’s great to have several high-potential employees working hard to improve their skills, if organizations don’t support these future leaders, they’re liable to lose them in one way or another. There are a number of things companies can do to improve their development process in the new year.

Provide Opportunities

Few things will undermine a high-potential employee faster than not providing them with opportunities to grow. These talented individuals tend to become restless if they’re not challenged to take on greater responsibilities. That restlessness can manifest in a variety of unhealthy ways, including disengagement, negative (or even toxic) behavior, and significantly reduced retention. By providing high-potential employees with a clear path for growth and offering them new challenges, organizations can cultivate a succession pipeline of future leaders who are more than capable of stepping into new roles.

Offer Guidance

Some organizations may hesitate to provide too much career guidance for fear of employees leaving to pursue opportunities elsewhere. However, research demonstrates that proactive development programs play a major role in improving retention rates. That’s because supporting an employee as they work toward their career goals builds trust over time. Working with an employee to create their PDP (and avoid some common mistakes) can also show that there is a future for them in the organization, perhaps even one that they wouldn’t have considered in the past.

Listen to Feedback

There is often a disconnect between the training and development resources an organization thinks their employees need and the ones those employees would actually like to have. Providing easy-to-access e-learning materials might sound like an ideal solution, but if those resources are focused on things that employees already know how to do and aren’t focused on skills and competencies they need in the future, they’re unlikely to see much use. By gathering feedback from employees to find out what kind of leadership development resources they want, organizations can build programs that are more likely to be used.

Effective training and development will continue to be a key differentiator for organizations as younger generations enter the workforce. As competition for high-potential employees becomes more intense, companies must think about how they can engage with these future leaders throughout their careers. The best time to focus on development is long before a leadership position actually becomes available. By putting leadership development programs in place to cultivate leadership candidates long before they’re ready to step into those roles, organizations can build strong succession pipelines filled with highly skilled and engaged employees.

Author: Darleen DeRosa

Darleen is a Managing Partner at OnPoint Consulting. Darleen brings fifteen years of management consulting experience, with deep expertise in the areas of talent/succession management, executive assessment, virtual teams, and organizational assessment. Darleen works with clients such as Accenture, Deloitte, American Heart Association, Johnson & Johnson, NJM Insurance, Daiichi-Sankyo, Autodesk,… View full profile ›