Creating a Leadership Development Training PlanÂ
Company Goals and ObjectivesÂThe first important component of a leadership development plan is to teach its leaders the organization’s goals and objectives. This will help to contextualize every decision they make throughout the course of their careers. For example, an organization that aims to increase their market share will need to emphasize competitive strategy in training their potential leaders. They will also need to help their personnel understand certain facts about their target market and its long term prospects. By teaching these kinds of lessons, potential leaders will be able to adapt themselves to the competitive strategy of their organization, and thus contribute to the company’s long term goals.Â
Since different companies have different goals and objectives, it also goes without saying that they will need to optimize their leadership training programs to suit their own particular needs. So in order to train good leaders and core personnel, organizations need to incorporate their long term goals in all of their personnel training programs, especially the ones that teach potential leaders.Â
Decision Making Programs
Another important component of leadership development training is decision making. Leaders need to be trained to make fast, intelligent and important decisions all the time. Training programs which are designed to help potential leaders create better judgements on the field will help them to cope with emergency situations and contingencies.
Decision making courses are intended to teach personnel how to think flexibly and creatively. For example, the trainees will be provided with scenarios that will require them to find an optimum solution to a problem. The problem can involve a zero sum game between two groups, a sequential game with multiple optimum outcomes or even just a simple riddle where they will need to guess the right answer. These kinds of activities help potential leaders understand their own decision making abilities, and how they can be improved over the course of their training.Â
By teaching potential leaders how to make effective choices, a comprehensive leadership development training program will be able to help its core personnel make decisive and successful decisions in their day to day responsibilities.Â
Team Building ExercisesÂ
Team building is another component of leadership development training, and this is because leaders need to work well with all kinds of personnel. Team building helps potential leaders develop stronger communication skills, conflict management skills, time managements skills and any other skills that will help them to manage personnel who will serve under them.Â
However, it’s also worth mentioning that leadership team building activities and exercises are not entirely the same as most other types of team building exercises. For one thing, these exercises tend to focus more on results, hierarchy and efficiency than team cohesion. They are also designed to examine each candidates leadership potential and then put them to the test. In this way, team building also helps potential leaders improve their leadership skills, particularly in relation to other personnel and company leaders.Â
Resource and Time ManagementÂ
Administrative tasks are, of course, one of the most common duties of a company manager or executive. However, being a good administrator is not so much about being good at paperwork as it is about managing existing time and resources. Learning administrative rules and protocol can be taught to all of an organization’s personnel, but leaders must also know how to manage their time and resources properly.Â
For example, effective time management techniques will teach potential leaders how to prioritize their appointments and manage work schedules. On the other hand, resource management will help leaders to optimize department budgets and create solutions for scarcity scenarios. These kinds of courses are important because they require creative solutions to relatively common problems. Teaching leaders to handle administrative tasks is easy, but the real test of a leader’s abilities is when they are faced with bureaucratic problems. Teaching them how to manage their team’s time and resources will not only help them cope with these problems, it will also help them to become better leaders.Â
Practical Learning ProgramsÂ
Like other types of personnel training, leadership development programs also need to incorporate practical teaching methods, and this is because effective and practical leadership skills are best learned in a real work environment. To this end, leadership training needs to help trainees gain actual work experience before letting them have a real leadership position.Â
This is important because actual leadership requires actual interaction not only with company operations and personnel, but also with other core personnel. A trainee will not get this kind of exposure in a class room, virtual or otherwise. They can only get the necessary experience through actual performance, which is why a good leadership development training program should also implement a system that allows leadership trainees to acquire some hands-on experience, like a provisional status or internship period, before being allowed into their actual position.Â
Conclusion
Leadership development is a process that involves turning potential leaders into actual leaders, and actual leaders know exactly what is expected of them by their organization. Company leaders are no different from other personnel in the sense that they are an asset of their company. What makes them special, however, is that they have more responsibilities. The more responsibilities a leader is expected to have, the more training he or she will need to receive. This is why leadership development training is an important component in any type of organization, and why they should be implemented in a practical and efficient manner.