What we mean by leadership development programme
A leadership development programme is a plan specifically created to develop current leaders in the business or to prepare future leaders. It allows employees to improve the skills that are needed for their current or future role. A leadership development programme also aims to help talented employees gain the appropriate expertise to move to a manager role and become leaders. The plan provides a way for employees to grow and should result in promotions. Having such a development plan ensures talent retention as employees with potential are being developed to move to higher positions. They see their desire to grow and career path fulfilled. It is in the business’ interest to develop high-performing individuals and ensure that their skills and commitments serve the organisation for the long term.
The importance of a leadership development programme and plan
Sustainable growth is essential for businesses. But having and developing successful leaders may bring more than we think. Below are some benefits of leadership development programmes.
Business performance
The development of leaders has a direct impact on business performance. Customer satisfaction is improved, decisions are made quicker, teams feel supported, savings are achieved, new revenue is generated and much more.
Employee satisfaction
Employee satisfaction is critical for the good functioning of a business. Job satisfaction measures how employees feel about the organisation they work for and their leaders. Having a clear development plan, one that includes leadership, demonstrates that the business cares and invests in its people. A clear career path and development plan makes for happy employees.
Attracting talent
There are links between leadership and talent acquisition . A lot of candidates for open positions put a high level of importance in the leadership that is associated with the role. As such, having the right leaders in place will have a positive impact on talent recruitment. It will benefit human resources teams and will streamline the recruitment process.
Retaining talent
Retaining talent avoids a lot of hassle, including lengthy recruitment processes and onboarding new hires. Through the leadership development programme, organisations can identify high performers and provide them with a prosperous career path. The programme aims at developing them and asserts their commitment to the business. For more content on employee retention, check our article dedicated to this topic here.
Enhanced company culture
Leaders should be committed to improving the company’s culture. By doing so, they create a healthy environment for all and drive employee engagement. The leadership development plan should allow leaders to create a positive company culture and to empower employees.
Improved customer retention rate
Good leaders are able to challenge but motivate their teams to strive for better performance. The mentorship they apply inspires team members. All these elements make for happier and more efficient employees which ultimately has an impact on customer satisfaction. Leader development has a cascading impact on business culture and should lead to a customer-centric approach.
Increased business agility
Being able to promote employees provides businesses with a competitive advantage. It allows them to be more agile and to adapt quicker to inter and intra changes. Having the right talent in the business and getting them ready for what is next will result in leadership positions being filled fast when they become available.
10 steps to create your leadership development plan
Having a leadership development plan may be seen as an expense but is crucial to ensure the right skills are nurtured. The plan is the backbone for all learning activities and development actions that relate to leadership. Below is a step-by-step guide to creating such a plan.
Step 1: Understand your business needs in terms of leadership
It is essential to write down your goals in terms development and to understand potential leadership gaps. Executive teams, leaders and human resources should all be part of the creation of the plan. Their ideas on gaps and opportunities will lay the path for creating the plan. This initial assessment of the situation should highlight any skill gaps but also show if any leaders are due to retire and what their planned backfill should look like.
Step 2: Analyse and identify the leadership traits you are looking for
This step consists in creating a profile of the best-in-class leadership you want for your business. For this, existing biographies, job descriptions and profiles of highly regarded leaders in the business can be used. Extract the leadership qualities candidates should have. These could be vision, creativity, charisma, mentorship and much more. Laying out these desired qualities will serve at a later stage when creating the plan. For examples on leadership qualities, check our article A Comprehensive List of Leadership qualities: A Guide.
Step 3: Assess the gaps in current leadership potential
This step focusses on your current leadership and the development required. To do this assessment, you can use the emotional intelligence indicators or even employee satisfaction surveys. Through this step, be precise so that the plan is tailored to serve the leaders in place and develop their leadership skills.
Step 4: Remember the business culture and its values
Leaders should embody the company values. They are the conduit of the company culture. Their style and the way they communicate and deliver feedback should be aligned with those values. Make sure there are strong connections between the leadership development plan and the company values.
Step 5: Think development rather than training
As its name states, leadership development is about development. When you identify top talents in the business, remember that leaders can be nurtured. This means that your employee’s leadership skills can be developed with the right experiences. To create these experiences for high performers, you can implement systems that will put them in leadership situations. The buddy or pairing system is an example of situations that can be used to develop leaders. By pairing a high performer with a new hire or a junior employee, you will create a natural development opportunity for the talent in question. Check this article for more details on this topic.
Step 6: Identify potential leaders within the teams
There is more to just performance when it comes to leadership. Excellent work does not mean that the employee is interested in becoming a leader or that they will be able to develop the skills for it. Keep an open mind throughout the process. This will open the door to candidates that might not have been obvious for leadership roles in the first place.
Step 7: Identify the skills to develop
This step requires you to be specific. The initial gap assessment combined with the company values are used here to identify the skills that need to be developed. These skills can be technical or interpersonal. Make sure you create synergies between this list of skills and the skills you identified when laying out the best-in-class profile of leaders you want for your business. Check out the 5 stages of team development here for more details.
Step 8: Set specific goals
Goals set in this phase should be “SMART”. This means that they should be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Time-bound. In this phase, you start forming the plan itself by identifying what the leadership development plan should achieve. Write it all down in the plan, with the details of the different steps that will need to be implemented and any dependencies between the actions.
Step 9: Implement KPIs and measure results
Any project plan should be associated with KPIs. These indicators will help measure the impact of the actions implemented, understand if the desired outcome was achieved and highlight if adjustments are necessary. To understand if your development plan was effective, you can measure the number of participants or the number of promotions it resulted in. These KPIs should be set before launching the plan.
Step 10: Write down the plan and deliver it
By following all the above steps, you will be able to write down the plan. Once your plan is ready, involve the appropriate level of senior sponsorship to your project. This will ensure endorsement and will lead to better adoption when launching this project.
Having a leadership development programme will boost your business performance, address gaps in the organisation and increase talent retention. There are many more benefits to leadership programmes. When creating your plan, follow our recommended steps and remember that great leaders attract and develop talent as well as inspire people.
