Virtual training

Why Leadership Training is Invaluable for Your Business

The CloudShare Team

Dec 07, 2023 - 4 min read

Is poor leadership dragging down your organization? There’s a big chance that the answer to that question is yes.

According to a survey by the Society for Human Resource Management, 57 percent of American workers say managers in their workplace could benefit from leadership training. Half of the respondents also feel their performance would improve if their direct supervisor received additional people management training. And 84 percent of people say that poorly trained people managers create unnecessary stress and work.

If those numbers aren’t enough to drive home the importance of leadership training, a recent report from GoodHire also found that 82 percent of people would consider quitting their job because of a bad manager.

Here’s how to develop effective leadership training for executives and employees alike.

Creating A Winning Executive Training Program

Identify Your Leadership Needs

While there will be some overlap, a manager in a software development company will naturally require a different skill set than a manager working in a retail environment. Similarly, every participant in a leadership training program will be starting from a slightly different place with their own distinct learning preferences. You’ll need to account for both of these details when designing your leadership training program.

That means designing a program that’s geared towards your business’s unique leadership requirements but also flexible enough to adapt to different learners and learning styles.

Define Your Desired Outcomes

Once you’ve determined your leadership training needs, the next step is to clearly define the goals of your program. This is best achieved by answering a few key questions.

First, why are you developing this program? Was there a specific circumstance or incident that spurred you on?

Next, what do you hope to achieve in the short term? What about in the long term? Are there any specific milestones you have in mind?

Finally, how will you measure the effectiveness and success of your program? What are your training KPIs?
Don’t make the mistake of going in blind and sorting things out later. You need clearly-defined goals in order to ensure your training focuses on the right things.

Don’t Just Use a Single Delivery Method

A good leadership program shouldn’t be delivered through a single model or medium. Instead, it should incorporate multiple delivery methods, including a hands-on component that gives participants the chance to practice their developing leadership skills. If it’s feasible, you may also want to include an in-person component.

Blended learning offers some pretty huge benefits, especially for something like leadership training, which usually demands at least some face-to-face interaction.

Incorporate Feedback

We’ve said before that feedback is a critical capability for high-performance training. This doesn’t solely apply to the analytics data you might use to optimize your processes. It’s also important that you’re able to provide feedback to participants in your leadership training.

What are they doing right? What could they be doing better? Overall, how does their performance look compared to colleagues?

Design this feedback based on the leadership needs you identified at the outset. Focus only on what’s relevant to your program. If you overdo it and provide participants with a bunch of irrelevant information, you might actually end up doing more harm than good.

At the same time, well-crafted feedback not only helps people become more aware of areas that need improvement, but can also motivate them. According to a study published in 2019, feedback in training can also make people more receptive to feedback from peers.

Space Things Out

Leadership isn’t something that you can develop overnight. It takes consistent effort for people to transform into more effective leaders. Design your training program with this in mind.

Rather than having all the sessions take place over a short timeframe, space them out over several weeks. Then, once your initial leadership training program is complete, schedule regular ‘refresher’ sessions for participants who wish to continue brushing up on their skills.

Prioritize Soft Skills

Business and technical skills are incredibly important for anyone in a leadership position. It’s hard to lead when you don’t understand the roles of the people you’re responsible for managing, after all. At the same time, they aren’t actually what makes someone an effective leader.

That requires soft skills such as:

• Interpersonal communication
• Critical thinking
• Time management
• Active listening
• Self-motivation
• Empathy
• Conflict resolution
• Delegation
• Accountability

Your leadership training should focus on helping people develop those skills – because they’re what will make the difference between a good leader and an ineffective one.

Iterate and Improve

Lastly, you should always be on the lookout for opportunities to further improve your leadership training. Look not only at your own analytics but also at what other organizations in your field are doing with their training programs.

You should also collect feedback from your participants. Ask questions like: what did they find helpful? What do they feel could be improved? Simple questions like these can provide you with powerful insights to iterate and improve.

Leaders Aren’t Always Born. They Can Be Trained, Too

The right leader in the right department can make all the difference in the world. An effective leader inspires everyone who works under them to be better. But even the best leader can still learn a thing or two.

A good leadership training program can help them learn. And it can help other people within your organization become better leaders, as well. Because contrary to popular belief, leadership skills aren’t something you’re born with.

They’re learned – with well-planned training.

Want to know a bit more about the most important training KPIS? Check out Critical Training KPIs Every Training Manager Should Track. You can also learn what it takes to become a training leader by reading How to Become a Head of Training and Development.