In March 2016 I posted an article on TrainingZone entitled “Leadership is a journey.” It was based on the John Donahoe quote “Leadership is a journey, not a destination. It is a marathon, not a sprint. It is a process, not an outcome.”
In this article I’m going to return to that theme, looking at the way in which businesses can help people to travel along their own personal leadership pathway. And I suppose the first question is why should we bother, why can’t we just go out into the marketplace and pluck fully formed leaders from the leadership tree?
Putting aside for one moment the fact that true leaders never stop learning or growing and therefore leaders are never ‘fully formed’; to sideline your people in this way not only sends out extremely negative signals about the way in which you value your employees, you are also wasting a tremendous resource within your own organisation. Then there is the argument that if you aren’t succession planning, you are effectively creating an unbridgeable gulf in your organisation between the leadership team and everyone else. The buck doesn’t just stop here it disappears into a chasm which prevents real collaboration, teamwork and engagement.
How do you train for leadership
With that in mind, how do you train for leadership? Well there is no single right pathway but there are some leadership behaviours which would benefit individuals, and their organisation, at every stage of the leadership journey. I’m thinking here about ‘soft’ leadership skills such as communicating and listening and understanding. Being able to set aside preconceptions and really hear what people are trying to tell you, rather than putting your own gloss on their words is a vital skill for leaders but it is also one which has a particular place in today’s more collaborative marketplace.
In fact, open listening skills not only help people to work together to deliver great solutions, they also help individuals to move along the leadership pathway. That’s one reason why the Leadership Practices Inventory™ (LPI) is so effective. Developed by Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner the LPI deploys 360° assessments in order to help leaders to gain a deep insight into how others view them as leaders as well as highlighting their own personal leadership effectiveness, thereby acting as a benchmark for improvement. This will only work if people are prepared to openly listen to the results, seeing them as a learning point towards future development.
So training to build listening and communication skills is effective at every stage of the leadership journey, but there are also some other leadership practices which can be introduced at a very early stage and which will stand individuals in good stead throughout their career. It’s never too early to demonstrate trust by giving people the autonomy to complete tasks or empowering them to make decisions in respect of their particular area of expertise. And when your people feel free to challenge the process they are more likely to come up with innovative solutions which improve customer service or result in cost savings.
More importantly, every time you demonstrate great leadership skills in your relationship with your people you are giving them a chance to learn by example, to build their own skills in a positive way. This in turn not only benefits individuals, it also benefits the organisation, its investors and its customers. It’s never too soon to start training for leadership; let’s make the leadership journey for everyone start today.
