Management and Leadership Development Are No Longer Optional
While a lack of any skill can cause employees to underperform their responsibilities that lead to operational losses and unplanned expenses, nothing creates more havoc than a manager that is lacking basic management and leadership communication skills.
When a manager is unable to interview well they can hire the wrong individual for a job, or worse say something illegal during the interview that places the company in risk of fines and lawsuits.
When a manager is unable to set performance expectations, coach performance and communicate constructive feedback, managers open up a potpourri of problems for themselves, the company and the employee.
While an untrained manager can well create their own list of misery for the organization, let's flip the coin to the unfortunate staff they manage.
While most employees will join an organization for the opportunities in the job, a majority of the reasons they choose to leave the organization can be traced back to their manager.
When you consider it costs on average the salary of the employee to replace them, most management development programs are paid for if we can avoid having to replace just one employee.
Now while every manager within the company needs to be competent in basic management development, the department, division and corporate level managers need what we call Leadership Development.
And like the book "The Leadership Pill" by Ken Blanchard points out, we cannot expect managers to possess leadership skills through osmosis.
You cannot simply pop a pill and become a leader, and what is needed for one organization may not even be applicable for your company.
Leadership skills range from setting vision, communicating to influence, to building teams, to making strategic decisions and problem solving outside the box.
Leaders need to be both masters of change themselves and be able to lead people and processes in changing environments.
Although none of these skills come naturally, the good news is they can be developed by simple training initiates.
Even though 20 years ago companies actively trained management and leadership skills, since it was common place we often acquired these skills in our new hires because everyone was developing their employees.
As the years went by fewer and fewer organizations saw the need to target this development, and it was thought to be something that could be learned on the job by observation.
Today there is such a deficit of management and leadership skill in our current managers and senior leaders that problems that could have been avoided are cropping up regularly.
We have companies struggling with a changing economy without a clue how to think outside the box.
We have Human Resources running around putting out one fire after another and recruiting more than is necessary because of the turnover.
Financial settlements for employer to employee violations are staggering just to avoid lawsuits.
Yet with all the value management and leadership development can bring and with all the issues that could be avoided, companies continue to kick this skill development can down the road.
Well folks, we are now at the end of the road and it is time to stop kicking the can and pick it up and start developing these skills.
Management and Leadership development is now as vital to your survival as regulatory training.
Passing on either will result in an early demise for the company.
Engage your training manager to assess skills, and create actions plans for specific crucial areas.
This is the triage and emergency surgery needed to stop the bleeding if you will.
At the same time they should create a development program for emerging managers to prepare them in advance of a promotion, while creating a separate plan for managers that could be seen as future leaders.
This is a two-fold process of reacting to the current issues while being proactive in reducing issues in the future.
The good news is that building managers and leaders is not rocket science, but it demands a lot of endorsement and support from the top of the tree.
To get this ball rolling it needs to be a company-wide initiative with a ton of accountability.
It is not a difficult process, but it does require leadership.
When a manager is unable to interview well they can hire the wrong individual for a job, or worse say something illegal during the interview that places the company in risk of fines and lawsuits.
When a manager is unable to set performance expectations, coach performance and communicate constructive feedback, managers open up a potpourri of problems for themselves, the company and the employee.
While an untrained manager can well create their own list of misery for the organization, let's flip the coin to the unfortunate staff they manage.
While most employees will join an organization for the opportunities in the job, a majority of the reasons they choose to leave the organization can be traced back to their manager.
When you consider it costs on average the salary of the employee to replace them, most management development programs are paid for if we can avoid having to replace just one employee.
Now while every manager within the company needs to be competent in basic management development, the department, division and corporate level managers need what we call Leadership Development.
And like the book "The Leadership Pill" by Ken Blanchard points out, we cannot expect managers to possess leadership skills through osmosis.
You cannot simply pop a pill and become a leader, and what is needed for one organization may not even be applicable for your company.
Leadership skills range from setting vision, communicating to influence, to building teams, to making strategic decisions and problem solving outside the box.
Leaders need to be both masters of change themselves and be able to lead people and processes in changing environments.
Although none of these skills come naturally, the good news is they can be developed by simple training initiates.
Even though 20 years ago companies actively trained management and leadership skills, since it was common place we often acquired these skills in our new hires because everyone was developing their employees.
As the years went by fewer and fewer organizations saw the need to target this development, and it was thought to be something that could be learned on the job by observation.
Today there is such a deficit of management and leadership skill in our current managers and senior leaders that problems that could have been avoided are cropping up regularly.
We have companies struggling with a changing economy without a clue how to think outside the box.
We have Human Resources running around putting out one fire after another and recruiting more than is necessary because of the turnover.
Financial settlements for employer to employee violations are staggering just to avoid lawsuits.
Yet with all the value management and leadership development can bring and with all the issues that could be avoided, companies continue to kick this skill development can down the road.
Well folks, we are now at the end of the road and it is time to stop kicking the can and pick it up and start developing these skills.
Management and Leadership development is now as vital to your survival as regulatory training.
Passing on either will result in an early demise for the company.
Engage your training manager to assess skills, and create actions plans for specific crucial areas.
This is the triage and emergency surgery needed to stop the bleeding if you will.
At the same time they should create a development program for emerging managers to prepare them in advance of a promotion, while creating a separate plan for managers that could be seen as future leaders.
This is a two-fold process of reacting to the current issues while being proactive in reducing issues in the future.
The good news is that building managers and leaders is not rocket science, but it demands a lot of endorsement and support from the top of the tree.
To get this ball rolling it needs to be a company-wide initiative with a ton of accountability.
It is not a difficult process, but it does require leadership.
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