Program leaders must be able to gain open feedback from teammates, clarify that feedback, create a development plan and hold others accountable. They must also be able to build trust and support one another through difficult conversations.
Most programs use a project model to involve participants in local community work. This reinforces assumptions about leadership and power, but can also lead to harmful outcomes for communities. Keep reading the article below to learn more about Program Leadership Development.
For a leadership development program to be effective, it must achieve clear and specific performance outcomes. Whether they are learner experience, on-the-job results, or business impact, these leadership development goals should be clearly identified before the program starts. This alignment ensures that the program is focused on what matters most and that the resulting performance indicators are attainable.
These performance indicators should be both qualitative and quantitative in nature. Qualitative measures might include learner engagement, satisfaction, and trust, while quantitative measures might focus on things like participant completion rates and retention levels. It may take months for some of these business metrics to show up in the numbers, but leaders should be able to assess progress towards the end of the program’s timeline.
In addition to measuring learning and business outcomes, it is important to also evaluate the impact of the leadership development program on the organization’s culture, culture, and climate. Specifically, these evaluations should consider how the program has contributed to changes in team productivity, morale, and collaboration.
Effective leadership requires the ability to build and maintain healthy relationships in the workplace. This can be achieved through a variety of means, such as through coaching and mentoring. By helping leaders develop these skills, it will be easier for them to keep teams motivated and productive in high-pressure situations.
A growing number of organizations are incorporating emotional intelligence into their leadership development programs, as this skill set is increasingly necessary for organizational success. For example, Medecins Sans Frontieres, an international healthcare nonprofit, launched a leadership development program for its field coordinators that included a curriculum that focused on resilience and empathy in high-stakes work environments. The result was a significant improvement in employee morale and a 25% increase in team efficiency on humanitarian missions.
Developing leaders is a long-term effort, and it is essential that leadership development efforts be aligned with the organization’s wider business strategy. This will help employees understand the importance of learning and support them in prioritizing their own development. This approach will also allow the L&D team to identify opportunities to make improvements in their overall learning and development strategy.
Design for Long-Term Impact
When designing a leadership development program, it’s crucial to have clear goals in mind. This includes identifying the organizational goals that a company wants to accomplish and the leadership competencies necessary to achieve those goals. This information will help create a structured curriculum and training framework that guides participants through the learning process.
Next, it’s important to assess the current leadership level of the organization and its ability to produce the desired business results. It might be helpful to segment the leaders by senior, mid-level, and frontline (or whatever distinctions make sense for your particular situation). Regardless of the level, each group should receive a tailored learning experience.
It’s also a good idea to incorporate both experiential and virtual learning, such as interactive case studies, in-person workshops, facilitated discussions, executive sponsorship, and project-based assignments that push participants to apply what they learn. This allows for more effective and holistic development of leadership skills.
Many programs also include a leadership lab or other immersive experiential activities that put participants into real-world situations that they might encounter as leaders in the company. These can be extremely valuable to developing the types of critical thinking and creative problem-solving skills that are necessary to succeed in a leadership role.
Finally, it’s essential to identify which metrics are the most important to measure and track. This can be done through surveys conducted before and after the program as well as by analyzing qualitative data. For example, a ministry school may want to know if their programs are having an impact on their students’ lives. This is often difficult to determine with a controlled study design, but they can instead choose a retrospective pre-test/post-test survey that will allow them to collect more targeted and actionable data.
Once the program has concluded, it’s vital to analyze the results and understand what worked and what didn’t. It may take months for some quantitative business metrics to show up, but it should be possible to measure program engagement, participant satisfaction, and the application of new behaviors on the job. It might also be useful to compare the baseline of your program participants to a control group of non-participants to see how your program is making an impact.
Orient to Participants and Communities
As attention spans continue to shorten and workers are pulled in many directions at once, leadership development should provide flexible learning opportunities. Microlearning allows participants to gain valuable skills and knowledge in small increments, allowing them to fit it into their busy schedules.
It is also important that leadership development programs be designed with the needs of participants and communities in mind. Many community-based leadership programs encourage participants to take on projects and solve problems in their communities. This can have negative effects, especially if the projects are not connected to existing work or if the participants lack the necessary resources and support from local leaders.
Moreover, the use of the project model often reinforces assumptions that leadership and power exist outside of the community. Instead, a more sustainable approach would be to build upon, rather than tear down, the efforts already being undertaken by community members. For example, the Health Policy Research Scholars program is designed to cultivate leadership among scholars who are working for health equity in their communities and disciplines.
The program uses a combination of experiences, including speakers, training sessions, group exercises, and utilization projects intended to advance a specific issue in the engineering community. In addition, the program provides scholarship funds to help scholars overcome financial barriers and continue their leadership education.
To date, HPR scholars have provided more than $70,000 in grants to organizations that are advancing healthcare and wellness in their communities and across the nation. To learn more about the program, visit their website here.
Registration for the 2024-2025 LDP cohort is currently full. Click here to be added to the waitlist, and to be contacted should a space become available. Additionally, the Society is offering two $3000 Leadership Mastery Grants to past graduates of the LDP who are interested in continuing their leadership education. More information can be found here. SAME also offers a range of other leadership development opportunities, including virtual and in-person courses, webinars, and mentoring. To view the complete curriculum for the 2024-2025 LDP, click here.
Focus on Relevant Work and Learning
Leadership development isn’t just about helping current and future business leaders grow; it can also help them feel more fulfilled at their jobs. As a result, they’re less likely to leave their companies. This is especially true when the company offers a program that aligns with their growth goals.
To help leaders develop the skills they need to meet their career goals, leadership development programs should incorporate real-world challenges and practical learning experiences. That could mean projects, rotational assignments, mentoring and shadowing. It could even include professional and leadership development classes, workshops, webinars or virtual training courses. Using a variety of methodologies ensures that leadership development is tailored to each person and their needs.
A key performance outcome that should be tied to leadership development is developing managers who can support the organization’s business priorities. This is particularly important for organizations that are experiencing rapid growth or changing market conditions. It also ties leadership development directly to a company’s bottom line.
Once a performance outcome is identified, it can be used to inform the structure and content of the leadership development program. It can also shape what leaders learn, how they learn it and how the program is measured.
Whether the learning is in-person or online, it’s important to tailor the content and activities to the participants. This is particularly critical to ensure that they receive the most value from the experience and can apply it on the job. That’s why most enterprise leadership development programs use a combination of experiences, such as workshops, seminars, virtual training and one-on-one coaching.
The best way to engage learners is through a personalized leadership development journey that’s based on their skills gaps and interests. This is possible when you have the right tools in place, such as a DDI subscription that can evolve along with your leaders’ needs. It also allows you to avoid adding new content and resources, which can cause confusion and reduce engagement. Instead, your learning platform can deliver relevant and targeted content that drives results.