Program leadership development focuses on enabling leaders (and their teams) to support key business priorities, like increasing employee engagement or achieving a higher revenue goal. Those performance outcomes should shape the structure, content and measurement of the program.
The most successful leadership programs also build on participants’ existing work and leadership rather than pulling them away from it. They illuminate communities’ existing power dynamics and enable leaders to reflect on how they lead. Contact Ripple Effect Culture for professional help.
In order to design a successful program, it is important for leaders to understand the business priorities driving the initiative. This may include everything from reducing attrition to improving morale, or even more specific goals like increasing revenue and minimizing risk. Once leadership understands these business priorities, they can start to align them with the desired skills and competencies.
Identifying the right participants for the program is also key. While many programs focus on developing the most senior leadership, it is also important to nurture potential leadership at lower levels. This helps to ensure that the organization has enough of a leadership bench so that the company can continue to grow and adapt as it evolves.
The program should begin with a baseline assessment of the participants, whether it is through a survey or one-on-one interviews. This will provide a solid understanding of their existing capabilities and a clear picture of the gaps that need to be filled. This can help to set a strong foundation from which the leadership development program will thrive.
Once the program is underway, it is important for leaders to continually assess the impact of the program and learner outcomes. This can be done through a variety of methods, such as surveying participant engagement; analyzing participation by team and level; tracking website hits and return visits; and assessing social sharing and usage metrics. These data points can be used to measure progress in both the quantitative (business metrics) and qualitative (learner satisfaction) aspects of the program.
Measuring the impact of a leadership development program is essential for helping to break the cycle of wasted resources and disappointing results. However, this will not happen unless the people who sponsor and buy leadership development programs take a more robust approach to evaluating and comparing solutions. A key way to improve this is by making sure that leadership development providers can clearly articulate the vision, methods and principles that drive their solution. If they cannot, then the program will have little chance of delivering on its promises. This will require an honest dialogue between the executive sponsors who fund the program and the HR personnel who select, manage, and deliver it.
Build on Participants’ Existing Work and Leadership
A leadership development program should build on the participants’ existing work and leadership to maximize impact. That’s why it’s important to carefully identify business priorities and performance outcomes. Once you have those defined, it’s time to select a program design. Leadership development programs can range from degree courses that offer in-depth understanding of leadership theories to mentorship programs that connect mid-level leaders with current top management. Most enterprise-level programs include a combination of experiences that focus on the specific leadership skills the organization values.
Choosing the right people to participate in your leadership development program is also an important factor. It’s tempting to select the highest performers, but high productivity doesn’t necessarily translate into leadership qualities. In fact, some of the best leaders are not the best performers at all, and that’s okay. It’s better to find the people with a natural propensity for leadership and the potential to grow into leadership roles within your company.
Once you’ve chosen your program participants, it’s important to give them the tools they need to thrive. This might include a structured mentorship curriculum, curated content on relevant topics, or access to internal and external resources. You should also provide them with a way to track their progress and ensure they’re getting the most value from the program.
Leadership development is a critical piece of any company’s growth strategy, but it’s often misunderstood and poorly implemented. Too many organizations associate it with “soft” skills like coaching and mentoring, when in reality, these are just a few of the key elements of an effective leadership development program. To avoid making these same mistakes, start with a clear vision for the program and make sure everyone is on the same page about what it’s supposed to achieve.
Once you’ve developed a solid plan for your program, it’s time to roll it out to the rest of the organization. One final tip: Be prepared to adapt your leadership development strategy if it doesn’t produce the results you were expecting. Producing underwhelming results with the budget you had set aside doesn’t inspire skeptics to buy into future investments in leadership development, so be willing to shift your focus or change your methods when necessary.
Rebalance and Rethink Power
Not so long ago, the popular idea of a business leader was one who spent most of their time barking out orders and firing people. Thankfully, that stereotype has largely disappeared. Today, it is more common to see leaders engaging in conversations about achieving goals in healthy ways.
Leadership development programs should take a similar approach. They should start with clear objectives and expectations and clearly communicate them to stakeholders and participants. In addition, they should include a structured process for selecting and training program facilitators and mentors.
Another important aspect is ensuring that the program’s content is tailored to different leadership levels for maximum relevance and engagement. This can be accomplished by segmenting leaders into senior, mid-level, and frontline. Ideally, this should be done after an initial baseline assessment of each level. This could be a simple question about what the most important leadership skill is for each group or a more in-depth survey.
PMMI U, a leadership development program available to managers and future leaders at PMMI Member companies, is an example of such a tailored approach. It starts with an initial multi-dimensional leadership assessment and a tailored learning plan that incorporates impactful exercises, project based learning and professional development opportunities.
Design for Long-Term Impact
Ideally, leadership development programs are designed for the long haul. Developing leaders for the future is crucial to your company’s success, so you need to ensure that the skills learned in these programs stick. This means ensuring that your program aligns with your desired company culture and teaching participants to be more open-minded in their leadership styles. A strong leadership development program can also help foster a more inclusive work environment and improve interaction between managers and employees.
It is also important to ensure that your program is engaging, and that participants are getting the most out of it. A great way to gauge this is through feedback and analytics, which you can collect before, during and after the program. This data can be used to make changes in the content and structure of your program to maximize impact.
For example, you can use the data to determine whether or not your participants are learning what they need to in order to perform their jobs well, and if there is any gap between what they’re currently doing and their potential future career goals. Another important metric to look at is learner engagement, which can be measured through surveys or by metrics such as number of hits and return visits for specific content.
You can also measure how the program is influencing organizational culture. Depending on the program’s timeframe and goals, it may take months for some quantitative business metrics to be proven out, but other metrics like participant satisfaction and the application of new skills can be assessed immediately after the program concludes.
Finally, it is important to remember that not all leadership development experiences will be equally effective for all learners. You will need to find ways to tailor your program to each unique audience, as each person will come with different expectations and learning needs. Creating a customized program for each of your participants can help them feel more engaged and will ensure that they will be more likely to retain the knowledge and skills that they have gained.
A successful leadership development program will provide your business with a stronger workforce and a more resilient culture for the long run. It will help your current leaders enhance their performance, and it will give you a foundation of leadership talent to build on in the future.