“They loved your messages. This was evident by the TWO standing ovations you received.”
Educational Service Unit No. 11
About 50 billion dollars is spent on leadership development (LD) annually. You can spend huge sums on sending individuals to seminars and workshops—but does that improve their performance in their job? Sadly, most of these leadership sessions fail and rarely produce positive outcomes. Results from past programs have proven that after the training finishes, there’s essentially no influence or difference in the following year.
It’s time for a change! Motivational speakers suggest making customized strategies that align with the company’s mission and vision, ultimately ticking the right boxes.
Whether your firm is a major corporation that has to reform its training program or a fast-growing business developing its first batch of leaders, this post will help you out. Let’s get started.
Leadership is a trait and skill that has to be cultivated for you to earn the “leader” title. Unfortunately, not everyone who holds a title also possesses the requisite skills. Why is that?
Sometimes individuals are thrust right into their first leadership position without receiving the proper coaching and preparation. It’s easy to use time constraints to justify not equipping managers with the skills they require. Additionally, when time is limited and firms are expanding quickly, they’ll likely create new leadership responsibilities.
Leadership development is the answer to this conundrum and the issues it raises. Inspirational speakers note how these programs and initiatives help future leaders become more self-assured, more skilled, and more capable.
These are typically structured programs that strengthen career paths to equip people with the abilities and characteristics necessary to carry out leadership jobs more successfully. This may also involve identifying individuals with the potential to become future leaders and creating a succession plan.
In other cases, it involves enhancing employees’ capacities for leadership inside your company. At the end of the day, development makes the difference between good leaders and great leaders.
Upholding culture is crucial to achieve your goals. Leaders are required to understand their responsibilities and perform according to their company’s culture. When they grasp that, they’ll create a great environment for their plans to be implemented.
Problems arise if you just throw a new leader into your organization, as they’d be required to lead and figure out the overall culture simultaneously. If you follow succession planning techniques and elevate someone from within, they’ll might be familiar with the culture but lack the qualities and abilities necessary to be a successful leader.
According to inspirational and motivational speakers, leadership development programs (especially personalized ones) assist you in addressing this problem. Your leaders will also be much better at working with senior management and coming up with solutions to accomplish the overall aims and objectives if they understand the business and its culture.
While we’re on the subject of promoting from within, LD makes sure you’re not ripping your hair out attempting to fill in for a retiring leader. While many managers serve two to three months in their notice period, some companies ask their senior employees to serve a six-month notice period.
This is a reasonable duration to build leaders who can take on a departing manager’s responsibilities and plan for succession accordingly. This time is essential to train the successor about on-the-job duties and provide them with the opportunities to collaborate with their predecessor before they leave.
Internal promotion is one path to development. According to business speakers, individuals see a future in their organizations when there are clearly defined paths for advancement. They are less likely to quit—which will save you from recruitment, selection, and onboarding costs.
94% of employees stated that they’d happily stay in an organization if it was committed to their growth, while 74% of workers believe that a lack of growth options keeps them from realizing their potential.
However, LD programs can assist individuals to stay put even if they have no desire to move up the corporate ladder. According to a study, 50% of employees quit a job because of their managers. That’s quite a number, and if people aren’t given the appropriate leadership skills, it will keep on increasing.
You’re considerably less likely to see “my boss” mentioned as a cause for leaving if you can determine what matters to your workforce. This means it’s best to equip those in charge of the employees with appropriate knowledge and skills.
Additionally, it will assist you in attracting new talent with innovative ideas that will benefit the entire organization. When an employer has a good reputation, word-of-mouth spreads faster than fire. Corporate speakers highlight how this increases your company’s overall worth and brand image.
People naturally oppose change. Unfortunately, industries aren’t advancing quickly enough. Great managers proactively handle change and that’s why change management is beneficial if it’s included in leadership development programs. If you provide leaders with the tools that are essential for foreseeing and adapting to change, they’ll not only keep workers on track but also make sure your business succeeds.
Creating strategies in writing and not implementing them is only half the goal. Even if you have the finest idea laid out in a spreadsheet, it won’t be effective unless capable leaders execute them. Appropriate LD programs help leaders understand the business strategy while also giving them the necessary abilities to implement it.
Every leader in your company is pursuing the same goal—achieving the company’s objectives. Leaders are able to collaborate effectively and recognize their varying responsibilities in achieving organizational objectives. Business speakers highlight that LD initiatives give leaders the opportunity to interact with their peers and encourage inter-company cooperation.
LD initiatives also help foster an atmosphere where everyone believes they have a voice in how the company is run. They’re a great way to cultivate loyalty and trust—and guarantee that leaders have a deeper understanding of their followers. Lastly, they can also promote a culture of information sharing and cooperation across the entire organization.
Professional keynote speakers note better customer experiences helps a company retain them. If leaders are encouraging behaviors that help employees perform better at their jobs, they’ll treat their customers similarly. Happy employees strengthen the organizational culture, which ultimately trickles down to customers.
Although not every person will have the same abilities that will turn them into good leaders, some skills and qualities are common. The elements that are a part of every LD program are mentioned below:
Some people might think that spending too much effort on soft leadership abilities like empathy won’t really make a difference in the bottom line. On the contrary, empathetic leaders leave an astonishing impact. According to professional inspirational speakers, people with these kinds of leaders are 61% more creative at work.
In the end, you’re more likely to achieve your goals and advance quickly with the support of creative, enthusiastic personnel. Consequently, empathy is a quality that all effective leaders share.
Helpful Tip: Inspirational speakers suggest speaking to employees about their personal lives aside from asking them how their work life is going. You’d come off as a kind person lending a helping hand and encouraging work-life balance. You’ll find it difficult to offer such support if you don’t comprehend what’s going on with your people outside of work.
Honesty is the best policy! Everyone knows that, but being an honest leader sometimes requires acknowledging that you don’t know the next step or solution. Effective leaders are honest not only with their team members but also with themselves, which fosters partnerships that are both reliable and productive.
They don’t claim to be experts in everything, and they’re honest about what they know—or what they are permitted to discuss. A strong leader keeps everybody informed and explains the logic behind decisions, regardless of how good, awful, or ugly they may be. Business motivational speakers understand being kept in the dark distances you from the company.
People prefer listening to the bitter truth in an honest manner. However, there is an art to it, and supervisors can benefit from this by developing good communication skills. Individuals have a hard time agreeing with unfavorable choices. If you honestly explain your reasoning, they will be more inclined to accept them.
Helpful Tip: Corporate speakers advise telling personal stories of your successes and failures, along with the lessons you took away from them. It will not only show your staff that you are human and susceptible to error, but it’ll also motivate them to open up. In the end, this fosters interpersonal connections, an open atmosphere, and compassionate leadership abilities.
If a leader is capable of responding to these two questions, they are likely to be a critical thinker: Have your words and actions influenced someone? How does your thinking impact the organization as a whole?
Your past actions may have taught you what to do or what to avoid. Knowing how your plans will turn out might help you provide effective strategies and respond quickly when things don’t go as planned. The issue is that not every leader stops to think or spends the time to carefully consider their actions.
So, how do you develop critical thinking skills? Gather all the necessary data and information first and then your critical thinking skills will come out. Professional motivational and keynote speakers hint at using the collected details to predict possible outcomes or possible paths to pursue. Ponder your experiences, but be honest with the concerned parties, and make sure to keep an open, inquisitive mind.
Helpful Tip: Give yourself some time to reflect. Many executives make the mistake of attempting to implement and evaluate strategies simultaneously. If you’re in that rat race, it’s quite challenging to know if you’re heading in the right direction. Hurried decisions are not likely to be good ones, so it’s essential to give yourself ample time to think and decide.
Identifying a small flame and putting it out is a smart move as opposed to battling a full-blown fire. You’re a leader, so it’s smart to recognize possible risks and put strategies in place to ensure that they remain just that—possible risks. That also entails creating frameworks to deal with unforeseen difficulties that develop contingency plans for concerns that could arise.
By employing reactive approaches, you wind up spending far more time attempting to put out the fire when issues do arise. Ultimately, this can mean your company, tasks, and anything else on your to-do list are put on indefinite hold!
Helpful Tip: Consider all the difficulties your team or business has previously encountered. By analyzing these situations, you’ll be able to predict and win in unpredictable circumstances. Additionally, make a map of all future milestones and activities that could have an impact and think about how to get ready for them. For instance, outline how you’ll handle the launch of a new product and identify any potential issues.
Steve Gilliland is an exceptional professional motivational speaker who gives heartwarming keynote speeches that will leave your audience in awe. He speaks on a variety of busness-related topics, ranging from business attitude and change to leadership and culture.
His Motivation Bites, blogs, and books contain insightful tips and bits of knowledge that help you find time for personal growth and teach you how to win in unpredictable circumstances. He’s a member of the Speaker Hall of Fame and is one of the top motivational speakers in the world.
Book Steve and get in touch with him today!
“You can’t go wrong having Steve do a presentation for your group or organization.”
– Donna L. Schneider, President, NHRMA
