Why most leadership training isn't working

Training your leaders to lead themselves, and then lead others is a challenge faced by all businesses and one of the main problems I see companies making again and again is the short term event based workshop.

The 1 or 2 day workshop is tempting for leaders facing the logistical ease vs learning effectiveness challenge. The temptation to bring in an expert or coach to their teams for a short and intense period of training so that they can get back to the day job and implement what they've learned is very real in today's fast pace.

We're really busy so haven't really got time but let's invest in the people and we'll benefit from the results is misguided, short term and inaccurate thinking, and mostly leads to frustration and a waste of important time, energy and money.

There are many reasons why this approach is not working.

Behavioural change takes time and is based on the formation of new, and transformation of old habits. A Mckinsey and Co survey shows that learners retain as little as 10% of information gained in training situations after as little as a week Study

Behavioural change is a journey of learning. it requires a number of steps and opportunities not facilitated in the 1 or 2 day event based workshop:

1. Learning in theory/teaching/coaching
2. Apply in real life and learn in experience
3. Reflect on the experience and gain new learning
4. Reapplying new learnings and build mastery over time

So, you can see that the event based workshop doesn't allow this.

Here's what I've discovered is required from coaching thousands of leaders in the British Army, Business and Sport that you can use to think about your own leadership training.

• Commitment - The individuals commitment to engage with the training opportunity fully and take consistent action in what they discover is key. The organisation's financial and time based commitment to the longer term 'journey' of leadership is also a fundamental factor to success.
• Real life practice - The ability to apply what is being learned in a relevant context. The real learning actually happens after the coaching or training session in real life situations. If this is not a part of the journey, real learning never actually happens.
• On demand learning and reflection - A critical part to the deepening of learning is the opportunity to review and reflect on training sessions again in an on demand platform housing videos and effective worksheets.
• Community - The ability to go on the journey with others in the team allows the learning experience to be enhanced by many perspectives. The community aspect of learning also provides the secondary beneficial effect of closer relationships as the team shares the challenge of the journey together.
• Purpose - Both the purpose of the learning in context and relevance to the learner is of critical importance to clarify and understand and coaching leaders to specifically discover their own purpose in their lives is a fundamental part of a true leadership journey.
• Measurement of effect - A recent Forbes article suggested that for the lion's share of leadership training, it is unclear about what the actual tangible effect is and what is different because of the training in real life outputs and outcomes. With very large sums of money being invested in this area, it is clear that all effective leadership training and coaching should be accurately measured in qualitative and quantitative ways to ensure success and impact.

In a world where everyone wants everything now, leadership training is not something that should be viewed as a series of events or workshops, it is a real life journey requiring structure, evidence based content delivered by leaders who have real life experience of leading others and being a part of real teams.

If you'd like to understand how I can support this journey for you and your company, get in touch at [email protected] and discover our highly engineered, and scientifically validated High Performance Leadership Accelerator.

www.highperformancegrowth.com

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