Leadership development (LD) is a crucial investment for any organization that wants to grow and adapt to changing markets, customer needs, and employee expectations. But how can you ensure that your LD programs are not outdated, irrelevant, or ineffective? Here are some tips to help you design and deliver LD programs that stay relevant and impactful.
Your LD programs should align with your organization's vision, mission, goals, and values. This means that you should identify the current and future leadership competencies and skills that are needed to execute your strategy and achieve your desired outcomes. You should also align your LD programs with your organizational culture and values, so that you can foster a consistent and positive leadership identity and behavior across all levels.
Effective Leadership Development (LD) should deeply connect with an organisation's strategy. This means that every LD activity should directly relate to the company's mission, vision, and broader objectives. When leadership training is closely linked to organisational goals, it produces and supports leaders who are ready and equipped to drive the organisation forward. But it's important to remember that our environment isn't static. Change is ever-present. To keep programs relevant, an iterative approach is essential. Regularly review LD initiatives against current strategic goals and adjust as needed. By continually evaluating and refining, we ensure that the leadership training stays up-to-date and always meets our organisation's needs.
?? How do you ensure your Learning & Development programs stay relevant? Talk to your employees to understands their needs. What do they want to learn? How do they want to be supported? With a Learning & Development program, your employees are your clients! You can also educate your employees about the opportunities that exist given their current skills, career path and what their counterpart profiles look like in the market to help facilitate discussions around interests and needs. There are some great tech solutions in the market that can help with this. Always open to a good chat to discuss in more detail! ?? Like to support this #talent #learning #development
Related to strategic alignment is getting a clear and tangible sense of what, exactly, is meant by Leadership Development in the organization? An effective tool I've used in this regard is the development of what we call the Leadership Effectiveness Quotient, or LEQ. Like IQ and even EQ, our use of LEQ is designed to help both quantify and qualify the performance metrics we want to highlight, develop, and ultimately improve. This process then allows us to more effectively and accurately measure the effectiveness of our LD programs as well as their impact any individual leader's development through them.
The biggest problems with these programs is a lack of communication and sharing what these programs are about, who they are for, who is in and why, and who is not included and why. They are often veiled in secrecy, not deliberately, but people forget that it's useful for all to know what these are, so that they can aspire to be on them. All these programs need to feel inclusive, and by sharing what the criteria are, it means you feel included even if you aren't on them. I think it's also helpful to see evidence of change, what's the impact been? Sometimes you just can't see it as the leaders haven't changed in any way ... so this is a really important piece, the impact of the programs has to be visible and transparent
LD programs must align the learner and the organizational strategy. Understanding where is organization is planning on going and giving those leaders the skills that enable that growth. That means we need to be visionaries and always looking forward as well as where we are today. Where I see where a lot of organizations are falling short is delivering learning that their learners want to take. If its tired old and not aligned to what will drive engagement then the learners go into a program begrudgingly. Give them programs that drive inspiration, tools and an environment that will embrace the practice of those new skills. Provide them with a support system of their peers and the rewards of developing themselves.
You should regularly assess and evaluate your LD programs to measure their effectiveness and impact. This means that you should use various methods and tools to collect data and feedback from your participants, their managers, their peers, and their direct reports. You should also use relevant metrics and indicators to track the progress and outcomes of your LD programs, such as retention, performance, engagement, satisfaction, and innovation. You should use this data and feedback to identify the strengths and weaknesses of your LD programs, and to make adjustments and improvements as needed.
An iterative process is crucial for the long-term success of Leadership Development (LD) programs. Through continual evaluation, using diverse feedback sources like participants, managers, peers, and direct reports, organisations can fine-tune their approach (and ensure its alignment with strategic objectives and context). It's not just about assessing success through metrics such as retention and performance, but also understanding how the program resonates on the ground. By intertwining regular feedback with an iterative mindset, LD programs evolve, adapt, and grow, ensuring they not only meet current needs but are also poised to address future challenges.
Learning and development programs must follow Learning, Unlearning and Relearning formula to attract constant growth in your team members. Consistently focus on growing with this formula can bring results faster and easily and effortlessly.
Evaluate L&D programs using Kirkpatrick's model, which includes four levels: Reaction, Learning, Behavior, and Results. Starting with Level 1, Reaction, focus on ensuring participants find the training valuable. Assess their engagement, contributions, and overall response to gauge its effectiveness. This feedback is crucial for refining future programs, identifying any crucial missing elements. Consider asking the following to participants: 1. Was the training worthwhile? 2. Did it succeed? 3. Strengths and weaknesses? 4. Venue and presentation style opinions? 5. Engagement level? 6. Top three takeaways? 7. Application in job? 8. Needed support for implementation? Analyze the feedback & consider changes that you could make in response.
In Level 2, which focuses on Learning, it's crucial to assess what employees have gained from their training. To do this effectively, test employees before and after training using methods like multiple-choice quizzes. This data is often used to determine if participants should receive course credit. For example, many eLearning assessments require an 80% or higher score for credit, and licensing programs often include a final pass/fail test. While not always practical or cost-efficient, pre-tests are the best way to establish a baseline for your training participants. Assessing knowledge and skills before and after training reveals clear insights into the impact of the training experience.
Learning and development programs can be carried out with the feedback of the owner and the people who work in the organisation. The main objective should be better productivity , accepting the ownership by the team and creating a better leader for tomorrow.
You should constantly adapt and innovate your LD programs to keep up with the changing needs and expectations of your participants, your organization, and your industry. This means that you should use a variety of learning methods and formats to deliver your LD programs, such as online, blended, experiential, social, and collaborative learning. You should also use the latest technologies and tools to enhance your LD programs, such as gamification, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and microlearning. You should also update your LD content and curriculum to reflect the latest trends and best practices in leadership development, such as emotional intelligence, diversity and inclusion, agility, and resilience.
For Leadership Development (LD) programs to remain influential, they must be agile, mirroring the ever-evolving landscapes of industries and participant needs. Pivoting to diverse learning formats, from blended to experiential learning, caters to varied learner preferences and maximises engagement. Leveraging cutting-edge tech, be it gamification, AI, or virtual reality, can elevate program delivery, making learning more immersive. Moreover, the core of LD isn't static. Continuously updating curriculum with emergent leadership trends like emotional intelligence, diversity and inclusion, and agility ensures programs are contemporary and effective. In essence, LD's continuous evolution guarantees leadership growth that's timely and relevant.
Ensuring the relevance of LD programs requires vigilant attention to current business climates and regular feedback loops with participants. Monitor industry shifts, integrating modern challenges and trends into your sessions. Diversify content by inviting varied perspectives, making sessions universally resonant. Blend traditional methodologies with emerging tech solutions, optimizing with data-driven insights. The heart of a thriving LD program is adaptability, openness to change, and proactive evolution in response to real-world demands. Stay agile and responsive, and your program will always echo with relevance.
You should also make sure your L&D team are also getting the learning and development they need. In some cases, L&D teams are so oversubscribed with creating and delivering the programs that they forget to serve themselves.
I have found that creating real, live situations and scenarios that bring the concepts into actionable, relevant practice is always a huge hit for participants of any program. Simply practicing a concept that does not reflect their real-life situations rarely allows them to be successful with the new skills when they leave the classroom.
Being proactive to ask and understand what are the concurrent and new needs. Most employees hope for changes that rarely happen; when they feel heard and valued, they are more committed. Organizations can offer innovative LD programs that keep people engaged challenged and provide an opportunity for personal growth even when currently there is no career growth. The programs should support them to improve and become better people, which is fundamental for any other leadership and performance program to work.
You should actively engage and empower your participants to take ownership of their LD journey. This means that you should involve them in the design and delivery of your LD programs, by soliciting their input, feedback, and preferences. You should also provide them with opportunities to apply their learning to real-world situations, by giving them challenging projects, assignments, and roles. You should also support them with coaching, mentoring, and feedback, by connecting them with senior leaders, experts, and peers. You should also encourage them to create and share their own LD goals, plans, and portfolios, by providing them with resources, tools, and recognition.
LD should be a participatory journey. What does that mean? Actively involving participants in the program’s design infuses it with authenticity, ensuring it's tailored to their needs and preferences. Co-design, both with senior leaders sponsoring the program and future/current participants, ensures the content and format are appropriate whilst giving stakeholders a sense of ownership of the program. Therefore, the program becomes something done with them rather than to them. This holistic, participatory approach ensures LD is both engaging, empowering and relevant.
Engage the excited. A key lesson I learned in gaining adoption for L&D programs is to stop trying to do it yourself and launch your program with your engaged, early adopters. We’d hold our first classes with the most engaged, get their early feedback, make adjustments and then ask them to actively support and advocate for the program! People are influenced by their colleagues so they often had more influence than we did on getting folks to enroll.
Outside of regularly offered leadership programs, I am often asked to create leadership programs that address a current need. I have found that polling the leaders who are asking for the program AND polling the future participants has always been a win when developing the program.
You should foster collaboration and networking among your participants and across your organization. This means that you should create and facilitate learning communities and groups, where your participants can learn from and with each other, exchange ideas and experiences, and support and challenge each other. You should also connect your participants with other stakeholders and partners, such as customers, suppliers, competitors, and industry associations, where they can expand their perspectives and insights, and build their relationships and reputation. You should also leverage your alumni network, where your participants can stay in touch, access ongoing learning and development opportunities, and contribute to your LD programs and initiatives.
Effective LD goes beyond individual growth; it thrives on collaboration. Setting up learning communities offers participants a space for peer-to-peer learning, allowing them to exchange ideas and experiences. This direct interaction often leads to deeper insights and a stronger grasp of concepts. Connecting participants with stakeholders, like customers or cross-functional leaders, allows them to gain different perspectives and build valuable relationships. Leveraging the alumni network provides an avenue for ongoing development and engagement. Continually involving past participants enriches current LD programs, ensuring they're always grounded in real-world experiences and insights.
I think relevancy is not the issue. When studying leadership we will find a plethora of leadership theory, modules, tools, applications and everything under the sun. It is all relevent. Every. Llttle. bit. of. it. I think the question is more about how do we attract individuals who are willing to do the hard work, and application, to put the phone's down, and think, read, reflect, and afterwards stand in a place of vulnerability and practice this thing we call leadership.
Here's what I have found works: Regular Needs Assessment: Conduct surveys, interviews, and gather feedback to stay aligned with evolving requirements. Industry Research: This knowledge helps tailor L&D initiatives to the changing landscape. Alignment with Business Goals: This helps in prioritising and measuring the impact of training. Customised Content: Tailoring programs to address unique challenges enhances relevance. Feedback Loops: This helps measure program effectiveness and gather suggestions for improvement. Leverage Technology: If possible, add gamification to enhance engagement and accessibility. Mentorship and Coaching: This facilitates ongoing learning. Regular Updates: You must keep them current.
L&D programs stay relevant when: 1. They are identified correctly as areas of improvement. 2. They are aligned with the goals and objectives of the team + the organization 3. They are tailor-made for the teams 4. They are developed on the latest trends and upskilling areas.
Here are a few strategies to consider - ? Use a Blended Learning Approach: Combine different learning methods, for example online courses, workshops, and on job training to cater to diverse learning preferences and keep the content engaging. ? Incorporate Technology: Utilize e-learning / LMS platforms, AI and other tech innovations to deliver engaging and useful content. ? Customize for your Audience: Different departments or roles might have different learning needs. Customize your content and study materials to make it relevant to your target audience. ? Incorporate Real-world Examples: Use current case studies and real-world scenarios in your training to make it more relatable and immediately applicable.
LD programs should be incorporated into every organization' s goals. To make sure LD programs stay relevant; ? Inquire from your employees what they need since they are the beneficiaries ? Be informed of new trends and innovation in your field and inculcate it into your program ? Create opportunities and support for employees to put to practice, all that they are learning.