Every business needs good leadership. Companies know that influential leaders who can guide employees efficiently will boost business and will help create and maintain a safe and welcoming workplace. What many companies often struggle with is the actual recruitment and development of their leaders.
This struggle manifests in many different ways, but most of them have to do with a new leader’s ability to manage employees effectively. According to a recent Gallup report, “Fewer than three in 10 employees in the U.S., U.K., Spain, France, and Germany strongly agree that their performance is managed in a way that motivates them to do outstanding work.” Business productivity is lower than it could and should be because leaders aren’t able to motivate employees to work to their highest potential.
This unnerving statistic makes business leadership recruitment and development a critical component of your business success. With that in mind, we’ve compiled 6 tips for developing effective leaders that we think will invigorate your business.
1. As much as possible, recruit leaders internally. Recruiting leaders from within your organization has many benefits. First, it reduces the cost of onboarding new employees. Second, selecting a leader who is familiar with the workplace means that they ideally already have a good rapport with the other employees. Third, and finally, this method will reward employees who have proven that they are capable of strong leadership. Those aren’t the only reasons to recruit internally, but they are some of the most important. If there are no suitable candidates in your organization, then it’s appropriate to start the external search.
2. Cultivate your employees to learn leadership skills with real experience. Place your most promising employees in positions where they will need to exhibit strong leadership to succeed. Participation in the scenario will test them, and it will provide them with experience for future leadership opportunities. Perhaps an employee has been performing at peak quality recently. Make them a project lead in your next business initiative. An experience like this can transform excellent employees into your top leaders.
3. Teach employees the difference between leadership and tyranny by example. Employees look to supervisors to set the standard for leadership in any workplace. As the primary example of what leadership look like, supervisors have to strike a balance between tyrant and pushover. You can’t let lousy workplace behavior or poor performance slide, but you also can’t resort to unfair punishment for employee mistakes. Just remember, future leaders in the organization will learn what acceptable leadership behavior is from the current people in management positions.
4. Train promising employees to be active leaders, not passive ones. Leaders need to be engaged in the work they’re doing and in the work they’re supervising. Take the Gallup report, for example. Most of the employees surveyed did not feel that their performance is managed in a manner that encourages them to do the best possible work. Encourage your leaders to take a more active hands-on leadership approach.
5. Encourage future leaders to bear part of the work burden. Managers and supervisors should delegate work when necessary, but they should also be closely involved with the work of the people they’re leading. Leaders should demonstrate to those under them that they are not above the work they’re assigning.
6. Invest in reputable online business leadership training. In our current day, businesses are increasingly mediated by digital technologies, which means that everything is operating at a faster pace. And that includes employee training. If you need to develop your leaders quickly, efficiently, and effectively, then enroll them in online training courses.
DigitalChalk Can Help
Looking to cultivate strong leaders in your organization. Then look no further. DigitalChalk’s on-demand course library has everything you need to create customized training for your business leader.