Leadership Development that Really Works
At ODI we’ve been concerned for some time about the effectiveness of New Zealand organisational leadership and we are not alone in that thought. We are also conscious of the variable quality of the response to that by the learning and development community.
At its simplest, sound organisational leadership is about influencing others in the organisation to act in ways that improve organisation results. Leadership’s purpose is resourcing and motivating people to respond in the ways that leaders want and the organisation needs.
And we are in no doubt that leadership competency at all organisation levels is a learnable art. That is also a thought shared by the learning and development community.
Improving leadership competency seems simple:
- Access new ideas, tools and methods, and
- apply them at work as new leadership skills and behaviours
- to improve organisation results.
However, many leadership training programmes fail to achieve it. Why is that?
To achieve all three of these steps there needs to be:
- clarity about which leadership skills and behaviours will improve organisation results (a framework of strategically aligned behaviours)
- clarity about who needs to develop which skills and behaviours (an individual needs analysis and training plan)
- application support at work (manager involvement, application opportunity, coaching, application tools)
- measurement (of engagement, learning, application and improved results).
Leadership training programmes that do not incorporate all four of these elements will fail. Wise counsel suggests avoiding programmes that do not meet this test because they will not deliver leadership changes that improves organisation results. Without this improvement the organisation gets no value from its leadership training investment.
If you are serious about effective leadership development for your organisation, contact Nicky on 021 133 1201 or info@odi.org.nz