According to Jack Zenger, founder of Zenger Folkman (a strengths-based leadership development firm), companies often wait too long to train their leaders. Every organization strives to have the finest possible leadership among its ranks. They recruit the best ones from the market instead of building a long-term plan to train employees from the early stages. Having dependable internal leadership training ideas is an excellent start to wonderful follow-up activities to safeguard your company’s long-term viability. Training departments should frequently be willing to invest additional time, money, and effort in their employees’ training. In this article, the management experts at F.Learning offer some typical ideas for leadership development to strengthen your team’s abilities and take them to the next level.
Why is leadership training for employees essential?
Despite the popular belief that “leaders are born, not made,” these abilities may be learned and strengthened. Is there proof that leadership training should be available for all employees? Is it helpful to execute it across all departments and levels of seniority? Here are 3 reasons why.
1. Improve employee engagement
Leadership training activities can help engage employees in the company’s mission no matter where they are, especially when team exercises bring together individuals who work remotely or frequently on their own.
2. Spark innovation through organizational leadership initiatives
Although these objectives may appear high-flying, the underlying goal is to develop employees’ interest in the topic and to stimulate people’s imaginations to come up with novel ideas and take them through to completion. Employees can benefit from a well-designed set of leadership development activities that encourage learning and innovation, especially when it comes to problem-solving.
3. Encourage learning and creativity
Employee leadership development initiatives encourage internal promotion. This form of training uncovers potential in people who would otherwise be working in relative obscurity.
As a result of intensive training programs, future quality leaders should demonstrate the following characteristics:
- Good communication
- Honesty
- Fairness and emotional intelligence
- Creativity
- Good problem-solving
- Ability to delegate
- Personal responsibility
5 leadership training ideas for employees in 2022
Ideas and activities are two different concepts; activities are more about execution, while ideas can also include goals or objectives. To build an impactful training program, we must start with leadership training ideas; then, we develop further leadership training activities depending on each idea or objective.
1. Develop an Organizational Learning Culture
Developing an effective and engaging learning culture is one of the most important tasks for any successful modern firm. You must continuously encourage your personnel to learn and improve to accomplish so. Enthusiastic employees who are urgent to understand and improve their knowledge and abilities are the most valuable assets.
Companies that foster a learning culture attract the best, brightest, and most innovative employees. They also aid in the development of highly skilled and agile workers.
2. Encourage Existing Leaders to Share Their Knowledge
When leaders see their workplaces as chances to share their expertise, they can contribute to creating cultures that foster leadership development. The experience of offering leadership training through apprenticeship and coaching is made more personal for the employees who receive it. It also makes them feel important, both as individuals and as employees. “One huge surprise was the extent to which these star managers prioritize continuing, rigorous one-on-one coaching of their direct reports, either in person or online, in everyday work,” writes Finkelstein in an article in Harvard Business Review. “It promotes competence and conformity and skill mastery and thought and action independence.”
3. Prioritize Self-Directed Learning Techniques
Everyone has to be able to engage in self-directed learning at some point in their lives. The availability of web-based tools, including videos, websites, online course portals, games, and more, has provided an informal learning environment for leadership training outside of the classroom. According to another Big Think specialist and Intrepid Learning leader Sam Herring, organizations can turn their current employee workforce into future-ready leaders by tapping into self-directed learners’ attributes of curiosity, commitment, and adaptability.
4. Design more experiential exercises in your training
Learning does not have to be purely theoretical or based on what others have done. Another excellent leadership training suggestion is to use experiential learning exercises to allow employees to gain firsthand knowledge of these concepts. It aids in the development of “a-ha” moments so that your work-based learners can achieve it quickly rather than spending time reading about an idea. Experiential training also helps individuals remember what they learned. The following are examples of experiential learning opportunities:
- Employees can shadow current leaders in management-in-training programs.
- Putting employees in charge of certain initiatives and projects that will help them grow as leaders; or Having employees serve on committees to develop solutions to the organization’s specific concerns
5. Develop and implement specialized training
Using specialized training programs is another excellent strategy for building leaders. Based on the information you obtain from an employee’s needs assessment, you can build customized programs that can directly target categories and critical competencies that your employee is missing. These programs can break down your select group of leaders into small teams, allowing for more personalized training. For example, some suggested activities may consist of group discussions and exercises on various themes; case studies based on real-world examples from your firm; and games and other learning ways to increase knowledge and abilities.
Conclusion
Ultimately, exceptional leaders significantly impact your company in various ways, including improving efficiency, innovation, and lowering employee turnover – all of which lead to higher profits. When it comes to developing teams, leadership training for employees can be fascinating, thought-provoking, and highly beneficial. We hope you find these leadership training ideas helpful and that they offer you a good beginning point for leading your team.
Recommend reading:
- 9 Most Effective Leadership Training Activities For Employees
- 8 Hot Leadership Training Topics For 2023
- 8 Best Animated Training Video Production Companies (2023 updated)
Sean Bui, the founder and creative director of F.Learning Studio, is a respected leader in the e-learning and multimedia production industry. With over 10 years of experience, he has dedicated his career to helping organizations create engaging and impactful learning experiences.
Under his leadership, F.Learning Studio has grown into a trusted partner for organizations in the education, healthcare, and corporate training sectors, producing over 2,000 minutes of educational animation.
