Steps to Take Before Investing in Leadership Development
Steps to Take Before Investing in Leadership Development
At this time of year many organisations will be considering investing in executive development, but how do organisations ensure that learning & development initiatives are targeted at where the best return on investment can be achieved?
Wasting Resources
Many organisations provide their leaders with training courses and workshop-based learning, but the generic nature of training course design and the poor targeting of leadership development intervention means that training initiatives often fail to be value for money or achieve their stated objectives for much of the time.
Targeting Leadership Development
We work with clients to help identify and target leadership development interventions. Our approach is to take a structured and benchmarked approach to leadership development which involves a though diagnosis of leadership development needs and the design of interventions around the needs of individual leaders and the organisation.
A Structured Approach
1. First, we understand the unique culture and business issues in the organisation through meeting stakeholders
2. We then design an assessment process which will help identify the strengths and development needs of participants
3. From this, we provide an analysis of the data and then feedback to participants with personal development plans. This enables learning to be targeted to individual needs
4. Lastly, we design a group GAP analysis with a learning & development plan. This plan provides a roadmap to the collective leadership development of the board or top management team.
How the Assessment Data is Used
A. To design personal development plans which encourage the most powerful form of development, which is self-awareness and development
B. Data can be used to identify training and learning needs and to help in the design of learning initiatives by targeting content where it is needed
C. To be used with executive coaching
D. To provide a framework for group learning & development
E. To understand the capability and future potential of leaders.
Objective and Bespoke
Leadership development interventions are no different from any other capital expenditure in that there is pressure to show a return on investment. This return on investment is rarely achieved through taking a “shotgun” approach to training using off the shelf courses. Instead, an objective and bespoke approach to leadership development will have a higher impact and return on investment.
Other Benefits
Assessment and analysis of the data offers other benefits in addition to learning and development planning. This includes:
1. Data for succession planning – we use objective techniques incorporating 9 box grid planning with assessment and real-life data
2. The data can be used to identify team and organisational performance issues. In our experience this has included identification of leadership issues which has affected our clients significantly
3. Powerful data for use in executive coaching initiatives
To find out more, simply click here to get in touch.
Matthew Davis
Director
