People are an organisation’s most valuable asset—especially leaders! The highest calling of your leaders is to unlock and leverage the full potential of every employee. Have you been investing in your leaders?

Benefits of Leadership Development

There is no doubt that leadership development is extremely vital for your company’s success. It is shown that companies which invest in leadership development deliver stock market returns five times higher than the returns of companies which place less emphasis on human capital.

By imparting leadership values and skills to your leaders, you can shape your organisational culture for the better. After all, a culture of dignity and respect is set from the top down.

Furthermore, you can ensure strategic business alignment between senior management and middle management. In today’s volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) environment, such alignment is crucial in driving business growth. Operational costs will be reduced; new lines of revenue will be created!

Challenges of Implementing Leadership Development Programs

Yet your company may face certain obstacles whilst implementing leadership development programs. According to a Winckworth Sherwood study involving 1,008 employees and 500 HR decision-makers, time is the key determining factor. 49.9% of respondents reported the difficulties in “finding time for leaders to develop their skills” as the top barrier.

Other significant barriers include “financial constraints” and a “lack of internal resources”, which were cited by 33.9% and 30.3% of respondents respectively. This was followed by “leaders not following the training & development in practice” (23.8%).

How to Overcome The Aforementioned Challenges

1. Resolve time constraints: Managers frequently report that they lack sufficient time to devote to professional development. Thus, the Winckworth Sherwood study recognised the need for buy-in to leadership development at the very top level.

Convince your senior management of the benefits of leadership development by showcasing numerous success stories. When your C-suite executives are assured of the immense value it brings to your company, it will be cemented as a business priority.

Designate specific ‘learning days’ to help managers have uninterrupted time for leadership development. For instance, the last Friday of every month can be earmarked for managers of all levels to attend leadership courses.

2. Overcome financial constraints and a lack of internal resources: If your company is a SME, you can look into applying for the Enterprise Development Grant (EDG). Just take note that standalone training courses are not covered under the EDG.

You can also consider online learning solutions from various educational technology startups. While traditional programs are expensive (ranging from $1,500 to $5,000 per participant each day), these cloud services can be accessed for a few hundred dollars a year.

Moreover, these online learning solutions allow you to track learner progress—and even customise modules to meet specific goals.

3. Address leaders not following the training and development in practice: One-off workshops typically do not alter your managers’ behaviours in the long run. In order to boost the effectiveness of these workshops, you need to combine it with real-word practice scenarios.

The Center for Creative Leadership has come up with a classic 70-20-10 rule: 70% of leadership development learning comes from experiences, 20% comes from social learning and 10% comes from coursework. This is an excellent guideline for you to follow!

Managers can be matched with peers or experienced mentors to simulate different work contexts. For example, you can have team leaders practising how to give and receive feedback in a positive manner.

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