Quality leadership can make the difference between an effective team and one that fails to achieve its objectives. Leaders can inspire people, encourage them to reach new heights, and make the overall work atmosphere more pleasant.
Developing leadership skills within your team also has added benefits. When you encourage traits within team members, you can also tap into those existing bonds and history between employees. Seeing peers take on leadership positions can also inspire other members of the team to keep aiming for new heights.
Let’s look at a few ways your organization can encourage leadership traits among your employees to build your organization for the long term.
Identifying Leadership Potential
The first step to building leaders within your organization is identifying potential. People excel in different roles, and some people have traits that will help them thrive as leaders. Some ideas you can use to flesh out the best candidates are:
Observation During Projects
Assess team members during their projects. Look for those who have demonstrated leadership in small ways throughout the project, such as leading troubleshooting conversations and organizing planning meetings.
Growth Opportunities
Offer ‘growth’ or ‘stretching’ opportunities. Create projects where people can try new skills or expand their abilities. See who excels during these projects.
Regular Evaluations
Evaluate your team regularly on traits such as taking initiative, adaptability, and problem-solving. Those who regularly show these types of traits typically excel the most in leadership positions.
Creating a Leadership Development Plan
Your leadership development plan should then focus on setting clear goals and objectives for the initiative. Know goals such as the rate at which you want to develop leaders and what areas they need to improve to become competent leaders.
As you identify your goals for your specific candidates within your organization, you can tailor development plans specifically towards these individual needs and your organizational goals. This level of personalization will help you turn out effective leaders ready to serve your organization.
Within your development plan, incorporate various learning materials to nurture the emerging leader. For example, you might offer workshops and self-paced e-learning opportunities alongside mentorship programs. These programs will further tailor the learning process and give everyone the support they need to excel.
Implementing Leadership Training Programs
As your business implements its leadership training programs, you should evaluate your system to ensure it includes several key components.
- Provide opportunities for real-life practice. People learn more effectively how different strategies work when they can put them into practice. Use role-playing and then graduate to opportunities to use strategies in real, controlled settings so people can practice using the techniques they learn.
- Offer mentorship and other types of feedback and guidance. People should receive feedback about how they perform throughout the learning process so they can steadily make improvements. The feedback and guidance from a mentor can be invaluable.
- Provide growing opportunities. As people build leadership skills, give them the chance to take on more responsibility a bit at a time. This helps people grow into the position and avoid being overwhelmed.
- Use experts to guide your program. Experts and external resources can provide some additional insight into your leadership program and where people can improve.
Encouraging a Leadership Culture
Overall, building a leadership-centered culture calls for you to promote a culture of learning, creativity, and initiative within the organization. Recognize those who step up within groups and provide a clear process for people to advance within the company. Encourage employees to continue to learn and develop their skills.
As people achieve goals in their role, reward their efforts with leadership positions and responsibilities. This encourages growth within the company so that people feel encouraged to look for ways to improve themselves.
Measuring the Impact of Team Leadership Development
As you build your leadership development program, you also want a system in place to evaluate its effectiveness. You have a few different KPIs you can measure to see how well your teams respond to leadership development.
- Track team productivity. Good leaders will inspire others to work their hardest and will encourage organization and efficiency.
- Track turnover. Leaders also impact job satisfaction and how likely people are to leave the company. Quality leaders should encourage retention.
- Gather feedback from the team. Ask people how they feel about the performance of their leaders and what they like and dislike.
As you continue to build your employee leadership training programs, use the insight you gather from these KPIs to improve your development strategies.
Benefits of Developing Leadership Skills
Focusing your time and energy on your leadership development is an excellent investment in the future of your company. When you have good leaders, your employees will be more engaged and motivated, which increases team performance and productivity. Your organizational succession will become clearer and run more smoothly. Leaders you can trust will even help improve innovation and adaptability because they will have the problem-solving strategies, communication, and initiative needed to conquer challenges and keep the business moving forward.
Conclusion
Through leadership skills training, you can position your company to mature and grow. Building quality leaders within your company can help your employees see a pathway for professional advancement, help nurture bonds within the company, and create a more positive and productive work atmosphere.
If you're interested in learning more about payroll training or educating members of your staff on payroll and human resources, you can visit the Society for Human Resource Management education resources or the American Payroll Association’s learning programs. These provide a helpful pathway for further education and development.