3 Long-Term Benefits Of Leadership Training

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If you want to attract good people who are looking for a place where they can contribute their time and talent, build in annual leader development for every level.

Back in the early days of my leadership consulting practice, I needed to provide lots of data about why a company or a leader should invest in leadership training. The field of executive and leader development was just emerging, and often, when budgets got tight, it was the first line item to be cut. 

I wrote several papers on why you should invest in development for your team and could have written plenty more. It seemed that half the battle was helping people see the utter necessity of leadership training. Thankfully, today there are more and more leaders out there who understand that their people need training and development. But we still run across those who push back against devoting time and resources to developing leaders or who just don’t see why it’s that big of a deal. For those leaders and for anyone else who needs a refresher, let’s go over the salient points of this argument again. 

Argument #1: To attract and retain talent. 

Your team expects to learn and grow at work. If you want to attract people who are looking for a place where they can contribute their time and talent, build in annual leader development for every level. This shows that you value people and are willing to invest in them. To retain these same talented individuals, provide lots of opportunities for their development as a leader and a human. Provide them with more tools as you expand their breadth and reach in the organization. This will give them the greatest chance to be successful in a new project or role, and that’s just good for business.

Argument #2: To retain competitive advantage.

Your company will be more competitive with higher performing leaders working for you. Recent research data shows that you will increase productivity by an average of 36%, operational efficiency will rise by an average of 42%, and work quality will be improved by an average of 48%. The formula is simple: Increase the skill and competency of your team leaders and they will be able to do their job more efficiently. This helps free up space for robust thinking, innovation, and process improvement. All good. 

Argument #3: To avoid gaffs in the trickiest of times.

Leading is tricky business these days. There are many factors a leader has to keep in mind on a daily basis: the overall vision and strategy; the health of the team; hiring, firing, and development for employees; diversity and inclusion; cost containment; productivity; and the list goes on. Very few new leaders come to the job fully skilled in all of these areas. They need professional support to gain and enhance the entire breadth of skills leading successfully requires.

Increasingly, business schools are adding leader development to their curriculum, but training is more potent when one is faced with a real-world circumstance that must be navigated with skill. In those instances, the motivation to learn and apply what’s been learned is at an all-time-high. 

Let’s consider a real-life case study.

Derek was struggling with communication and how his employees related to him. One of his team members was super disengaged. Derek wanted to learn how to communicate and engage with all members of his team, but especially to increase employee engagement. 

Through leadership training, Derek worked on his blind spots — specifically, how he communicates with his team when under stress. He worked with his coach to transform his ability to listen and connect with team members. 

Derek’s biggest insight had to do with seeing more clearly the way he leads when he’s stressed. He realized that he becomes overly directive, bordering on micro-managing. As a result, his team, recognizing that he didn’t trust them to do the work, learned to step back and let Derek do what he did. 

So Derek began to sit back and listen more. He focused on repairing the strained relationship with his disengaged employee. And he quickly began to see the payoff. The team dynamic improved. Derek repaired the relationship with the strained team member, which led to increased performance. Efficiency went up as the team got work done in a more productive way. With their team working more smoothly, they were no longer holding up projects or causing undue delays. Best of all, by listening and being aware of his own behaviors under stress, Derek increased team engagement. 

And as for the dollars and cents of it all? A standard project that had previously taken them two to three weeks to complete was now getting done in a week. This resulted in a $21,000 cost savings on just one project. Talk about a payoff!

All of these are reasons why you should add leader training to your budget and keep it there. Your team will thank you, your customers will notice, and your organization will thrive.

Previously published on Forbes