So many leadership development programs. So little time. Or resources. Or… decent programs. The business of training and development is a $366 billion a year industry.
Yes, you did read that correctly. The most annoying thing is that a lot of those programs are not working as they should and there is a whole range of reasons why. Leadership training is so important to any business strategy that’s been designed to keep your global organization adaptable and innovative. But if the training is not up to standard, you run the risk of spending a lot of money and time, and not getting the value you hoped for.
Here are five challenges that’ll hit you when implementing a leadership development program and five answers to deal with those problems.
1. Generic Program Content
You read our last article talking about why global leadership development is so important. You find yourself getting excited about developing yourself or the leaders in your organisation. You start shopping for ‘off the rack’ leadership development programs from some of the big players in the space. University business schools, local college programs, online training and development schools. “This one looks interesting! You get a certificate at the end!” you think to yourself.
Then you read the course content.
It reminds you of the content you learned 20 years ago at university. You know in your leadership heart of hearts that the whole landscape has changed since then. Leadership styles and techniques have moved on, the impact of technology has permanently changed the way we interact with consumers and manage our teams. The qualification looks nice on paper, but the outdated content will fail to deliver that innovative spirit you need your leaders to have.
Similarly, you read the course content. It’s up to date and discusses the current generic issues that leaders face today. But you don’t see much about the challenges specific to your industry. Perhaps it’s a case that the course is geared towards domestic leaders. Yes, people can do it online from wherever they are in the world, but it won’t actively prepare them for the nuanced challenges of global leadership. You also find that you can’t tailor it to specific challenges faced by key departments in your organization. So Sally in Talent Acquisition is going to go through the exact same training as Francis in Research and Development… that’s not going to work.
Generic training creates generic, mediocre managers. You’ll get by, but it’ll be nothing to write home about. So how do you go about avoiding this?
Build Your Own Program
You could get an expert in and build a training program from scratch. It’s a huge project but you have huge amounts of flexibility and autonomy around what is being learned and how that learning is applied. It’ll be a process and require a lot of time and resources, but by doing this you create an opportunity to embark on a training journey that will help the leaders in the organization discharge their leadership duties more effectively. That is the end goal after all. You want to be as prepared as possible to manage the unique challenges presented by the industry and the nature of the teams that are being led.
The training will be as good as the team you choose to help you build it, so choose wisely. But if there’s enough expertise close by, it makes sense to capture all of that knowledge and distill it into a training program that will benefit your up-and-coming leadership team.
Work With a Leadership School to Build a Custom Program
Building a program from scratch might not be completely necessary. The other leadership programs you may have seen might actually have an excellent framework that you’re happy with. They might be accredited by an academic establishment which is great as it’s an industry-recognized qualification once completed.
If you don’t want complete autonomy over the program but you also don’t want to forfeit it entirely, you’ve got the option to do the best of both. Working with an external training organization to build a custom program for your industry is a great solution to the problem of generic content. Any excellent leadership development training provider should be able to customize the program to suit the individual needs presented by your organization.
The advantage of doing it this way is that leadership development schools are very well connected, which means they can draw on a wide range of expertise to build a program that really stands head and shoulders above the rest.
2. Programs That Aren’t Scalable
As an organization, one of the key problems you’ll face is standardizing the quality of leadership development training across the business. Global organizations feel this more acutely because of the geographical barriers presented by doing business across borders. You can have a brilliant training program, but if it’s difficult to access, then some of your leaders will be able to benefit from it but not all. This means that the overall development of your leaders will become lopsided. Some will have the tools and others won’t.
That’s likely to be a bit of a disaster.
Traditional classroom-based learning is a great idea if everybody is physically in the same location, but if everybody is everywhere, what’s the answer?
Take Advantage of Virtual Learning
Thanks to the internet you can now deliver high-quality courses online and leadership development is not excluded from this. Creating or making use of an existing virtual learning platform will make your leadership development goals scalable. You can use training videos, online exercises, interactive virtual classrooms and video calls which will deliver that immersive training experience without physical presence.
3. Too Much Reflection With no Application
The temptation of many leadership programs is to reflect heavily on ‘leadership laws’ and the achievements of successful leaders without encouraging the practical application of that knowledge. Leadership development curriculums should focus more on the actionable rather than the philosophical.
So how do you go about having a streamlined leadership development program?
Cut The Fat
Context should always triumph over content; every module should tie to either the personal development of the leader in training or it should tie to a context specific to your organization. Knowledge gained should be able to equip leaders to manage in the environments they find themselves in.
Finding out about Steve Jobs is amazing, but if his style of management does not translate well into your industry, it’s just empty learning. This is not a problem if you’re learning about leadership for learning’s sake. But if you want to be a global leader that is clued up about the industry your company is competing in, you’ve got to be prepared to get ultra-focused and cut the fat out of your program.
At this stage, it’s likely that you’ve already gotten a foundational knowledge around leadership, so it’s a waste of your time and resources to repeat those learnings in-depth. The more niche you are, the more effective you are likely to be.
4. Ignoring The Impact of Company Culture
One of the problems you may encounter is sending your leaders on a leadership development course that disconnects them from the company culture. In order to be effective, they are going to need to have a clear understanding of the culture of the organization so that they can seamlessly integrate innovative strategies without alienating and discouraging their teams.
The danger, of course, is that during the exciting period of learning new things, that flame of excitement meets a resistant company culture and is snuffed out. Excitement and optimism quickly become apathy and discouragement as all that learning is tucked away for another company.
So how do you avoid this?
Transformational Leadership Modules
Transformational leadership modules will help global leaders understand the dynamics that affect whether the changes they want to implement will be successful or not. An excellent leadership program will make sure that leaders can keep one eye on what is happening in the present within their teams and another eye on the kind of innovations that change the game completely.
Transformational leadership training is like the bridge that links those two things together. Without it, you end up with inspired leaders that have no idea of the tact required to take that learning and implement it. Make sure this aspect of leadership development is weaved into the program — you will never get the results you desire without it.
5. Not Tracking The Real-Life Results
Last but not least, the real challenge is actually seeing the return on your investment. Leadership development is expensive, but it is always worth it when you see things improve dramatically in your organization. Some leadership development programs are actually effective but organizations fail to track the right metrics that showcase its success.
Decide What The Leadership Development Program Should be Improving
Developing soft skills like leadership techniques can be difficult to quantify in terms of results but there are things you can track.
Metrics like increased revenue, decreased staff turnover, general staff satisfaction, and team cohesion go a long way to showing you that the investment has been worth it. Ensure that at the time of launching you have a clear idea what the leadership development program should have a positive impact on.
These will vary depending on the priorities of the business, so work with your team or program provider to ensure that the content of the course will deliver the knowledge your aspiring leaders will need. Then check the data yourself. Has staff turnover been affected? What about revenue or output? How are employee satisfaction levels?
If this data has not been collected initially, you won’t be able to track the changes. It’s easy then to think the program hasn’t delivered the intended value. Worse still, the program might not actually be delivering value and you don’t have any way to prove that because of a lack of clarity about improvement targets.
To conclude, leadership development programs have the capacity to add huge amounts of value to your organization. Many programs will compete for your attention but use these tips to help you pick a program that will genuinely give you what you need to succeed as a leader.
Global Leadership Development With Eurac
Here at eurac, our focus is to train and develop world-class global leaders who are passionate about leading their teams to do extraordinary things. To find out more about how we can equip your leaders to inspire and innovate, get in touch with us here.
Alternatively, if you’re looking for a business academy that can work with you to create a course that tackles challenges unique to your organization, please get in contact to find out more about bespoke programs.
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