We are in an era of unprecedented disruption. From the global pandemic to blockchain technology, businesses are finding it a challenge to stay ahead as a bevy of methodologies are experimented with. As the industry accelerates into the future of work, there is a clear need for inspiring leaders to steer teams and companies.
It is important to realise that leaders don’t just make decisions - they form strategies. This visionary quality is what enables businesses to find footing amidst the shifting sands. But while some may think that leaders are born, research suggests otherwise. 70% of leadership skills are formed through life experiences, and when such instances do not present themselves, that’s when leadership training takes its place.
This makes great news for companies: You don’t actually need to solely depend on specific hires to grow your company. Instead, empowering your existing managers and teams with leadership training can foster employee happiness and improve training satisfaction rates, while developing career paths to senior roles.
However, it is worth noting that the skillsets to be a great leader are complex and nuanced. By instilling the right combination of vision, inspiration, and acumen, one can train individuals to alpha drive your goals.
These five reasons will explain how leadership training will effectively spur your business growth, and why they matter.
Inspire strategic direction
It has been said that the more unpredictable the environment, the greater the opportunity – if you have the leadership to capitalise on it. From a changing global landscape to an evolving workforce, the leaders of today face a more chaotic business environment with newly emerging challenges and crises. Strategic leadership plays a crucial role in organisations operating in a dynamic business environment and especially so in challenging episodes such as organisational crises.
Yet, strategic leadership does not come easily in most organisations. A 2015 study by PwC on 6,000 senior executives found that only 8% of senior managers turned out to be strategic leaders, or effective at leading change. PwC also highlighted that organisations are struggling to solve complex problems because they do not identify and empower leaders with the right capabilities and attributes to solve them.
The job of strategy is not limited to a few top executives. If an organisation wants to succeed into the future, strategic leaders are needed throughout the organisation. With leadership training, organisations can build capacity for strategic leadership and attract, develop and retain the strategic leaders that seem so elusive. With the right tools, insights and frameworks, leadership training can unlock leadership potential and help executives optimise their portfolio of leadership skills to lead strategically and navigate the unknown effectively.
Inspire and foster positive culture
Company culture has arguably always been important but thanks to recent high-profile culture crises such as Volkswagen, Uber and Wells Fargo, as well as the continuing battle for talent, culture has become a strategic priority with material impact on the bottom line.
Leaders are often pivotal in creating a positive work culture and Harvard Business Review (HBR) believes that they are both “inextricably linked”. And when we say leaders, we do not just mean the CEO or senior management. With COVID-19 changing how leaders connect with employees and how colleagues connect with one another, it is the leaders in the middle layers of an organisation’s hierarchy that wield the most influence on employees’ daily experiences. They are the source of where an organisation’s culture start. So, if a culture change is what the organisation needs then it occurs when the manager’s behaviours change.
To facilitate that change, managers can benefit from leadership training. Sessions like the 3-day module within Executive Certificate in Leadership & People Management can bolster one’s ability to identify and develop high-potential talents, and form the necessary soft skills such as communicating and role-modelling the desired culture to inspire performance.
Enable the best decision-making
Most leaders are placed within the middle to top management tiers of a business. Their direct connections with employees and upper stakeholders allow them to be in a unique position: to provide judicious consultation and activate sound executions simultaneously, surrounding themselves with diverse opinions and welcome inclusivity. But because of existing competition and ambition, leaders are under more scrutiny than before.
To prepare leaders for these new demands, leadership training that includes a holistic methodology can help them tap into their elevated viewpoint and introduce effective collaboration techniques, influence strategies, and executive presence to best facilitate business goals.
Drive innovation
A future-focused leadership style is needed to drive innovation in the next economy. With the world of work changing, innovation has also taken on a new meaning than just inventing. It’s about adding unique value and thus requires leaders who can engage and listen to those around them, master new skills and take calculated risks.
An example of a leader who successfully drives innovation would be Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook. Zuckerberg is known for driving Facebook with a motto of innovation, hosting “hackathons” where employees power through a sleepless night to build new ideas of their choice. This encourages employees to be creative and innovate and could ultimately result in fresh ideas for Facebook as well.
Leadership training can demonstrate how one determines and takes calculated risks. It can also nurture an eye for innovation opportunities and teach how to apply systems thinking for structured transitions and successful implementations.
Build the right connections
Professionals all know how networking is imperative to business growth. And sometimes this does not necessarily have to be outside of the organisation. By training a leader to hone their acumen and “join the dots”, a company can witness significant improvements internally.
Leadership training can boost a manager to become a super-connector, with the skills to build, manage and leverage resources more effectively. With their enhanced grasp of team members and nuances within the organisation, they can become great champions of diversity, help mediate conflicts agreeably, and inspire natural productivity.
Conclusion
Leadership is a trainable and transferable skill that creates lasting value for both individual and business. This is supported by a study published in the Journal of Applied Psychology, which found that participants who had undergone leadership training had a 28% increase in leadership behaviours and a 20% increase in overall job performance.
Leadership training also creates a sustainable competitive advantage for the company and is a win-win for all stakeholders. Even existing leaders can equally benefit from supplementary training to round out their existing talents, reinforcing high-potential candidates can be just as rewarding when one offers leadership training courses.
Continually upgrade your future leaders with the skills needed to inspire. Enrol for SMU Academy’s Executive Certificate in Leadership and People Management.
