Leadership training is critical to helping your company function smoothly and also a great benefit to offer your managers. Good managers can help the company culture to spread and are the key to employee engagement. Yet, even the most talented managers will need (and want!) some education to excel.
Training improves managerial skills and helps you recruit and retain talented managers. A recent HR Dive article says that 74 percent of working professionals favor companies that provide continuing education and upskilling opportunities.
Also, leadership training prepares managers for advancement and internal mobility. A Robert Half blog stresses the need to prepare successors for every role, including CEO.
Read on to discover the top skills you should aim to build through your leadership training program.
Communication
Next to the broad “Management” skill set, communication skills are the most critical, says LinkedIn Learning. Good communication skills can build trust, mentor and coach employees, and articulate the company’s culture and vision.
Effective communication involves both speaking and listening. Departments are more agile and successful when managers and employees participate in honest dialogue. Developing active listening and other communication skills can improve work relationships and translate into better relationships in the employee’s personal life.
Learn about Voxy’s course: Effective Communication in the Workplace
Language
Language training is critical to fostering an inclusive workforce. It is also essential to growing your company’s customer base.
The number of people in the workforce who originally come from non-English speaking countries is increasing. Some may speak very little English, so addressing them in their native language is critical. Others may speak English well; speaking to them in their native language shows you care about them. Language training also improves cultural awareness, which is a foundation of diversity.
Knowledge of other languages and cultures is also crucial for expansion into other countries. While your company may be able to hire a translator or consultant to help with your international launch, you’ll still fare better if your executive staff speaks and understands the native language.
Teamwork
Collaboration leads to better innovations, quicker problem-solving, and more efficient operations. Effective collaboration is a skill, however. Managers can dramatically improve their effectiveness by embracing teamwork and learning to listen and divide the work based on individual team member’s strengths.
Ability to Connect
With proper training and support, connector managers can improve employee performance by 26 percent, according to Gartner.
Connector managers provide feedback in their areas of expertise. They also facilitate connections between their employees and others in the organization who can provide them with feedback on specific needs.
Wellness
Well-being benefits and training are critical to retaining employees, including organizational leaders. Leadership training, which improves career performance and options, is one aspect of well-being training. However, today’s managers expect broader wellness training.
Employees, including managers, are worried about their financial situations, such as being able to retire comfortably and afford to educate their children, according to Forbes.
Leadership training programs that include financial education can improve managers’ well-being and eliminate a stressor that can distract the manager from their job. It can also enhance their satisfaction with the company.
Virtual Leading
About 80 percent of employees work remotely or in a hybrid environment, and more than 90 percent of employees prefer to do so, according to Gallup. Also, well-managed remote teams can outperform those who work in the same office, according to the Harvard Business Review.
Of course, poorly managed remote teams can be a disaster, failing to satisfy clients or meet corporate goals. The art of virtual leadership is difficult to get exactly right, HBR says. However, the best leadership training programs can help managers improve their virtual leadership abilities.
Critical components of a virtual leadership course include building trust, fostering open communication, clarifying expectations, ensuring engagement, and learning when to convene in person.
Change Management
The Greek philosopher Heraclitus said, “Change is the only constant in life.” His axiom is even more true now than when he expressed it in 535 BCE.
Influential leaders must learn to adapt themselves and lead others to adapt. An effective change leader is resilient and agile and thinks strategically. They also communicate vision well and know how to coach employees to avoid the pitfalls of transitions.
Leadership training programs that promote change management might include standard change management models, such as Kotter’s Change Model, McKinsey’s 7-S Model, or the Kubler-Ross Model.
Conflict Resolution
Conflict and communication barriers exist in every organization, and effective leaders know how to resolve conflicts before they negatively affect the cohesiveness and productivity of the team.
Conflict resolution training can enable leaders to diffuse anger, turn conflict into dialogue, and get everyone moving forward together again. It can also help them identify triggers that may cause conflict.
Decision-making
Some leaders have difficulty making decisions, especially difficult ones. However, making tough calls is part of a manager’s job description. The more senior the executive, the more often they’ll have to make a hard decision. More than half of new executives say the decisions they had to make were more challenging than expected.
Sometimes executives are paralyzed by their fears or need to be considerate and put off decisions indefinitely. Failing to decide promptly can have negative consequences on the organization.
Any training for executive leadership should strengthen decision-making skills. It should help the executive understand their decision-making style, provide models for sound decision-making, risk analysis training, and help in navigating roadblocks to making decisions.
Time Management
Leaders who manage time effectively are more available to coach their team members to top performance. Time management strategies include setting priorities and scheduling time within those priorities, getting organized, learning to delegate effectively, and holding employees accountable.
Coaching
The best leaders are excellent coaches. Effective coaching requires building a solid relationship with employees and ensuring employees feel rewarded for their progress. Effective coaches listen to their employees, ask questions to determine their knowledge, delegate tasks, and provide constructive feedback.
While some managers are naturally gifted coaches, training can develop many skills required to coach effectively. Leadership training can also help gifted coaches improve their coaching.
Problem-Solving
Finding ways to overcome challenges and roadblocks is critical to leadership success. Managers who creatively solve problems increase their productivity and that of their team. Leadership training can provide tips and tools to help managers improve their problem-solving skills.
Final Thoughts
A leadership training program can create benefits throughout your organization. Effective leaders can coach their teams to greater productivity. Leadership skills training helps you retain your managers and provides them with the communication skills to keep their employees engaged as well. It also develops mid-level managers into executive leaders.Voxy offers job-specific leadership training that can unlock your team’s potential. Voxy’s AI-powered digital solution helps your managers achieve their goals quickly. Request a demo today.
