In a corporate and project environment, serious challenges can arise regularly in the course of everyday life. Managers play a key role in solving them, and they must respond with intelligence, expertise, a people-centred attitude and a focus on strategic objectives. To do all this in the most professional way, it is essential that they receive continuous training and develop their skills. But what is management training? Why is it important and what results can we expect? What skills do good leaders need? How does leadership training change at different stages of your career? In this article we will explore this.
What is driver training?
Leadership training helps identify high potential individuals who can become good leaders, and deepens the skills and knowledge of those already in leadership roles.
Depending on the current challenges of an organisation or project, managers may need to develop both soft skills (interpersonal, social skills) and hard skills (objective, measurable skills).
Why is leadership training important?
Development and effectiveness
For a company to grow or a project to succeed, it is essential that managers are committed to their personal and professional development. Otherwise, performance will suffer and stagnation is likely.
Effective change management
According to a Harvard Business School study, three powerful forces define the nature of work and create the need for management training:
- Rapid globalisation
- Increase in the number of teleworkers
- The generation gaps
Rapid globalisation makes it inevitable that leaders must be able to overcome physical and cultural boundaries and lead teams across borders.
The increase in the number of people working remotely means that managers need to know how to manage and unite team members who work physically far apart and the team as a whole.
The generation gap is significant because we are seeing Generation Y and Generation Z in leadership positions bringing completely new ideas to both work and learning, sometimes in stark contrast to traditional leadership approaches. This leads to conflicts that need to be managed effectively.
What results can be expected from leadership training?
The leaders:
- identify and develop their leadership style
- be able to formulate and implement effective management strategies
- acquire skills to increase the efficiency, effectiveness and success of their teams
- reduce turnover and increase engagement, creating a strong and cohesive team
- develop their communication skills, negotiation, influencing and conflict management techniques
- increase their confidence
- learn to interact effectively with people, developing the ability to give constructive feedback and seeking valuable feedback from the team
Leadership training: what skills should be developed?
Whatever your field, every manager needs to learn and develop the soft skills to motivate their team and ensure they are effective.
What are these essential leadership skills?
- Strategic thinking - Leaders need to be able to think holistically, linking current tasks to long-term goals and focusing on results rather than individual process elements.
- To get started - This is a core competence as it is essential to be able to give direction to teams. They must work to achieve company or project goals, anticipate problems and propose alternative solutions where necessary.
- Passion - A great leader is committed to the success of the team, understands what motivates them and knows how to inspire team members to be their best.
- Attention - One key to success is for a leader to be able to shift the focus from themselves to others, to better understand the needs of a team, for example. This, in addition to contributing to effectiveness, is an excellent way to build trust.
- Greetings - A collaborative leadership style is always more effective than a command-based approach.
- Reliability - If team members perceive their leader as a reliable partner who is always there for them, they will be more motivated.
- Credibility - A leader can earn the trust of a team and partners by being credible.
- Enthusiasm - Leaders need to be positive and energetic, and encourage others to adopt a similar attitude. This helps to get their ideas accepted and motivates employees to come up with creative solutions when working on a difficult problem.
- Support - A great leader must be readily available to answer any questions and solve any problems that arise.
How can leadership training be effective within an organisation?
1. Building a culture of learning
Leadership training will not achieve its purpose and will not be sufficiently motivating if it takes place in an organisation where continuous development and learning are not an important value.
To create this within the organisational culture, it is important to enable knowledge sharing. That is, recognising team members and employees who are working to develop new skills. By their example, others can be encouraged to want to learn.
2. Defining training objectives
To do this, it must take into account current shortcomings, such as the difficulty of succession of managers. We need to look at who might have a good chance of becoming a great leader in the future.
It is also important to keep the strategic objectives in mind. If, for example, a company is planning to expand into a new market, it may be essential to focus on developing the right leaders to achieve specific goals.
It is also necessary to look at what leadership values an organisation or team considers important and to focus on developing them further.
3. Designing the ideal driver training method
It is important that the management training programme is tailored to the individual needs and objectives of the organisation.
What are the most common learning methods?
- Learning from other senior managers - For example, pairing senior managers with managers who have just taken on a new role can be very effective, especially if the aim is knowledge transfer or succession.
- Group learning - Group learning can be used to identify employees with leadership potential, train future leaders, understand group dynamics.
- Leadership team development - A joint programme for those already in leadership positions helps participants to support each other in developing new skills and improving interpersonal communication.
- Self-directed learning - While leaders cannot develop in isolation, self-directed learning has a place in training. For example, this form of corporate learning and development can be used to teach soft skills such as communication techniques and strategic thinking. This is beneficial because participants can progress at their own pace with the help of the learning materials, guides, exercises and self-assessment tools provided.
Career paths and leadership training
Developing leadership skills is important at every stage of your career.
Training for managers at the beginning of their careers
By developing their personal leadership skills, young leaders can prepare themselves for greater responsibility and move up the career ladder more quickly. This can be supported by leadership development programmes that improve self-awareness and enhance the skills needed to motivate teams.
Training mid-career managers
Training can help middle managers to create more value for their companies in today's fast-changing global environment. Leadership training often includes programmes on business development and business strategy, as well as executive coaching to further hone the skills needed to run a complex business. At this stage of your career, it is worth considering a higher education degree in management.
Top-level leadership training
As a senior manager, CEO or board member, it is important to pay attention to identifying and exploiting new business opportunities, encouraging innovation and developing the ability to lead with conviction.
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