Leadership Development for Results
Professional development is a key to retaining quality staff.
Yet too many companies fall into the same pattern of leadership
development. Senior leaders attend an annual retreat then spend
the rest of their professional development budgets on each
traveling their separate ways for conferences specific to their
profession expertise. Mid level and line supervisors abhor a few
half day or day long trainings where a senior leader or outside
trainer provides a boring lecture on how they should be
supervising. If results are expected in supervisor and leader
performance, then the current leadership development model
should be abolished in the garbage pile of non-effective
practices.
Professional development is about behavior change. No one would
take such an approach to stop smoking or lose weight. Living
healthy includes daily or every other day aerobic activity for
30-50 minutes according to the fitness gurus. What fitness
expert would recommend an exercise program of aerobic activity
for ten to sixteen hours once a month? Behavior change takes
time to take effect and the information-dump approach to
professional development waste precious professional development
budgets.
Professional development achieves change results: 1. When the
appropriate interactive adult learning environment is presented.
More information is retained when information is provided
through multiple learning styles and in small enough groups
where discussion and interaction reinforce the training
objectives. 2. When professionals develop specific plans on how
to implement the changes. Professionals need to have time during
training to develop goals based upon the information, develop
action steps to reaching the goals, assign time lines, describe
how they will know when the goals are accomplished and choose a
way to reward themselves when the goal is met. 3. When
professionals find accountability partners to help them succeed.
Whether another supervisor, their supervisor, or a friend
outside the organization, sharing their plans with another who
can ask them about their progress will help the behavior change
take hold. 4. When training is provided in short but frequent
sessions. A couple of hours focused on a topic is about as long
as the current workforce can maintain attention and retention
loss is significantly related to the amount of information
provided. Providing two hour sessions every couple of weeks
gives each professional the right amount of time to soak up the
information and begin working on their plan. 5. When they
believe top management is buying in to the professional
development plan. What is important to the senior leaders is
usually important to other managers and supervisors within the
organization. Visible support for the professional development
program from the top of the organization will help it yield
results.
Next time you are planning how to spend your professional
development budget, put these budget saving ideas to work for
you. You and those you lead will see results!