Leadership Training - opportunity
Leadership training - opportunity
General
Leadership training is good.
However, without the opportunity to lead there will be little practical experience gained in the field.
Not all potential leaders will have the opportunity to reach a position where they can lead in practice.
Some people will gain skills and look for an opportunity elsewhere to lead.
If you have possible leaders that don’t have an immediate opportunity to get to a leadership position give them challenges to help them develop their skills.
Many of the great military leaders would not have materialised without the unfortunate opportunity of war.
The challenge
Leaders need an opportunity to lead and organisations that are expanding will naturally generate positions of leadership.
Conversely, those organisations that are cost cutting will tend to have fewer opportunities.
Even those companies that are cutting costs should have a vision of where they wish to be in the future and thus should encourage the development of leaders for their own future success.
When a manager sets goals he should stretch the ability of the individual.
They should be neither too difficult nor too easy. Pitching them about right is the tricky bit.
All goals should be agreed with the individual.
For a leader what appears to be a very hard task for one just presents a challenge to him or her.
There is a great deal of satisfaction in completing something that others thought was nearly impossible.
The management and control of ‘teams’ can begin to prove difficult if it grows too large.
If this happens it is probably a good idea to consider creating further opportunities for leadership by sub dividing the group into smaller more manageable units.
Timing
No one likes nasty surprises.
If you are going to provide a difficult challenge to anyone you must give them the time to prepare for it.
The more preparation you have the easier it will be to have success.
An individuals career doesn’t remain static. It would be rare for anyone to remain at the same level by design.
People go through an education system and gain employment due to specialist knowledge and eventually begin to run a group of people based upon that knowledge and experience gained.
Eventually, you may reach a position where specialist knowledge is less useful and strategic thinking and a global view is more relevant. At this stage you will have built upon earlier leadership experience and knowledge and demonstrate some of the additional characteristics at this level.
Career review
You may well have a very good idea of the potential for an individual but how do they feel about it?
Unless you talk to individuals about their career on a regular basis there is likely to be some conflict in their aspirations and yours as leader.
In order to do this it may be better to arrange a separate annual meeting rather than tagging it on to the annual appraisal.
In order to promote leadership you could establish a leadership library where individuals have access to particular reading materials.
In terms of career, an individual may wish to remain at the technical level rather than take the road to a more global position.
What does the individual want to do in terms of goals, remaining where they are or moving either internally or changing companies?
Succession plan
Many companies will have a succession plan for potential leaders.
This can often be seen as a secret document.
There is no reason, as an individual, why you shouldn’t ask if you are being considered for leadership within the succession plan.
It should be raised at any annual review together with any need to fill gaps in technical knowledge or other aspects.
There may not always be the opportunities for leadership development but the organisation should prepare their personnel anyway.