Often leadership training is seen as a select program offered to a few, bright members of the team. There is a tendency to turn it into a reward for good performance or a filter for future leaders – maybe it’s the cost of the training session or perhaps over the years it has become an instrument for facilitating promotions.
Whatever be the case, we are here to put forth the idea that EVERYONE in the organization can benefit from leadership training and that it should be open to all – even to employees not on a managerial level.
To understand this idea, let us first look at what leadership training teaches.
- It helps you understand your motivational drivers, emotional intelligence so that you can use this knowledge to control and guide your thoughts, actions, and behaviours.
- It teaches you advanced communication skills so that you can influence and work well with your peers or team members.
- Leadership training teaches you to apply or adapt your leadership style to meet specific challenges. You will be taught how to manage stressful and demanding situations to drive team performance.
- You will also help people who work under you to learn and grow by coaching them or by sharing positive feedback.
- You will learn how to think logically, analyze information quickly, and come up with solutions on-the-fly.
- And finally, you will learn to take charge of your own professional development to keep growing.
If you take the word leadership out of the equation, it becomes evident that EVERYONE would benefit from having these skills. So, why just limit it to a select few?
Here are some ways in which you will see the business benefit of this training
1. Enhance Productivity
According to Gallup polls – employee investment leads to 10-19 % increase in sales and 9-15 % more self-reported engagement from employees. Giving new skills such as independent thinking, communication, and teamwork can have long term benefits across teams. When everyone in the company is communicating well and is self-driven, it will automatically drive productivity through the roof.
2. Show employees that they are worth investing in
In a recent survey, companies with engaged employees outperformed those without by up to 202%. When you invest in training employees, they see career growth and opportunity within the organisation; this translates into making them work harder and be more engaged with the company.
3. Expanded leadership pool
Opening up leadership training develops hidden talent early on. Ultimately this will give you a larger crop of talented professionals who can step into leadership roles quickly and effectively.
4. High retention rates and low HR costs
It’s no surprise that engaged and loyal employees tend to stay longer with their organisations – not only is this great for productivity it also makes the work of HR managers much easier and saves the cost of onboarding and training new employees.
Offering advanced leadership training also positions your organisation as an employee-centric company making it an attractive place for future employees – this naturally makes it easier to attract top talent during recruitment drives.
Conclusion
You want your C-suite managers and team leaders to have a certain set of skills and maturity; when employees from all levels of the organisation are offered the SAME skills, it will grow the benefits exponentially and have a cascading effect on the company culture. Imagine an organisation full of self-motivated, forward-thinking individuals – how can anything stop that company from growing?
What are your thoughts on the subject? Do you think widening leadership training to include more employees will have observable benefits? Do leave your point of view in the comment section below. We would love to know your opinion.