“A leader is the one, who knows the way, goes the way and shows the way.” – John C. Maxwell
We at TEP.Global believe that leadership attributes are not inborn, but the result of learning, practicing, refining, and improving.
As the top experts for decades in leadership assessment, executive recruiting, and talent strategy, we know some common leadership attributes, challenges, and proven ways to develop leadership competencies.
Leaders at various levels aspire to have leadership attributes such as these:
Vision
Communication
Conflict Resolution
Building relationships
Integrity
Empathy
Self awareness
Ability to inspire and motivate others
Mentorship
Delivering results
etc.
This non-exhaustive list of attributes can be expanded and deepened by every instance of problem solving and relentless learning through leading and applying skills to challenges.
Among many specific challenges every leader faces in his or her specific field and company culture, there are some common challenges all leaders face, such as:
Poor communication
Conflict management
Employee well-being & development
Communicating organizational goals and clear expectations to teams and employees requires leadership to first completely accept new goals, plans, and changes themselves. Next, an implementation strategy needs to be in place, to get employees to believe in the same goals, plans, and changes, and to know their roles in realizing the goals.
Communication often needs to be repeated, sometimes through two-way conversations, to ensure leadership and employees are on the same page and understand each other.
When employees are clear about their roles in the growth of their organization, and how they can impact the organization’s goals, they feel valued, connected, and motivated to help their organizations achieve their goals. On the other hand, poor communication can result in loss of trust, focus, and productivity.
Defusing and resolving conflicts requires dispute resolution skills, which can be acquired in leadership development programs to be discussed later in this article. It is also important to establish and apply a conflict resolution process within an organization.
In today’s fast-paced world of technology, divisive political and social environment, war, violence, and climate change, more and more people experience various levels of depression and anxiety, both in life and at the workplace. Strong and well-prepared leaders proactively guide themselves and those they lead with practices for mental health, resilience, and organizational harmony ( — to be discussed later in this article).
Perhaps one of the most important leadership attributes or metrics, is in bringing up more new leaders and giving team members the opportunity to grow. This is a paradigm shift from focusing only on delivering products, services, and the bottom line to a human-centric and motivated workforce that leads to organizational development and revenue success.
Instead of pigeon-holing employees in an organization’s mechanical structure, leaders need to first know and respect everyone’s abilities, talents, and passions, and find fitting roles for them to feel fulfillment at work and potential for growth.
Leadership development is not generalized life coaching. Each company’s development programs should focus on the organizational goals, leadership teams’ core competencies, and positive outcomes.
A successful leadership development program needs to have these components:
The first step is to strategically align leadership development programs with organizational goals and brand DNA.
TEP partners with global brand building resources to help decode brand DNA, vision, mission, culture, target audience, customer analysis, five-year and three-year goals that will execute brand vision for businesses, startups, multinational companies and organizations.
Then, we help organizations determine if they have the right talents in the right places to reach their goals, and what types of talents need to be recruited or promoted, and what adjustments of roles and responsibilities are to be made internally.
By syncing leadership development programs with specific metrics for organizational goals, leaders not only can anticipate learning skills relevant to their responsibilities, but also immediately apply what they learn to daily work.
With an outcome-oriented approach, programs should be designed to provide content based on what’s needed by leaders to achieve a company’s goal. Each program is unique to each organization at a specific time.
Customization is firmly based on a company’s brand essence and brand strategies, specific to the culture and needs of an organization.
In-person workshops and seminars are better environments for leaders to inspire, support, and brainstorm with each other, and hone their people skills at the same time.
Virtual meetings, though not as impactful as in person meetings, can supplement a hybrid model of both warm-body and remote participation.
The ultimate delivery of what the program offers is for the leaders to practice the skills in leading their organizations, skills such as dispute resolution and approaches to workplace mental health, resilience, and organizational harmony.
Since the programs were designed initially to be aligned with a company’s brand DNA, business models and strategies, the effectiveness of these leadership programs must be measured by the same goals initially used for establishing the programs.
Apply a business’ KPI to measure the success of leadership development programs, with both quantitative and qualitative metrics. Follow up with participants and get their feedback, then report to the C-suites with the numbers, progress reports, metrics such as employee engagement or turnover, surveys on changes in leadership behaviors, and why the program has made a difference for both the participating leaders and the company.
© Dr. Vic all rights reserved.
TEP.Global not only has a combined 100 years of experience and expertise in people management, talent acquisition, executive assessment, but also deep knowledge in building teams and workplace culture in organizations of all sizes. For more information and insights, please contact us.
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