Is your leader development world-class and comprehensive?
CEOs consistently rank leadership development as one of their top priorities and report that a lack of leadership talent limits their ability to grow and pursue their strategic plan. But developing leaders at all levels isn’t easy – it requires ongoing support, accountability, feedback and insight. And like any new skill, it requires lots of focused practice.
But providing that intensive support to rank-and-file managers is expensive. The compromise that companies often settle on is group workshop or classroom leadership training – two-thirds of leadership development is provided through workshop or classroom sessions. These programs usually focus on teaching managers what it means to be an effective leader. But research consistently shows that workshop sessions aren’t very effective – in other words, they don’t have much impact on how managers and leaders perform. And that’s too bad – not only do companies lose out on better leaders today, but those leaders often never catch up from the lost early years without leadership development.
The challenge for workshops is well understood – while they may help participants learn about what leadership “looks like”, that’s only one requirement leaders have to grow and build new skills. As we discuss in our LASER model of effective leadership change, the more difficult challenge is helping leaders take that knowledge and develop new skills and habits. Imagine attending a classroom session on open heart surgery and being shoved into the operating room. Leadership workshops face the same problem.
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See why practice is so important for developing leadership skills.
And how effective practice is very different than other kinds.
To Be a Better Leader, Practice, Practice, Practice
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This isn’t news and many companies are trying to find ways to expand their workshops to develop comprehensive or “full stack” programs that support leaders in every step of their growth – to expand the learning out of the workshop and into the leaders’ day to day work, with support in practice and building new habits. But helping leaders on a day to day basis is expensive and takes a great deal of effort and cost to build and support a hands-on program.
Careerwave’s new Enhanced Workshop program is designed to help companies expand their workshops to support managers after or between workshop sessions. The Careerwave Enhanced Workshop program is an effective and affordable way to incorporate critical active practice, focused goal setting and professional feedback and coaching with workshops. These tools are necessary to convert learning into skills and to build new leadership habits.
How can a workshop program be made full stack? Between workshops, managers complete frequent activities to reinforce the workshop learning and to practice new skills from the workshop materials. Careerwave’s leadership development specialists or professional leadership coaches provide feedback, support and accountability through text, email or video conferencing. And combining technology with real development specialists and coaches means that the program is high-touch without being high cost. Because the program is immersed in the leaders’ day to day life, the activities address real projects, not hypotheticals or case studies, and promote better learning and more focused practice to build new skills. For example, leaders working on effective difficult conversations will practice their new skills in real conversations with their team.
Careerwave also prepares leadership learning materials based on each clients’ workshop to reinforce the learning from the workshop an
Without reinforcement, managers forget more than half of their training within 2 weeks. No wonder 75% of companies say their leadership development is not effective.
d ensure that leaders have a consistent experience from workshop to learning to activities. Leaders also have access to Careerwave’s extensive library of leadership development materials on more advanced or different topics than in the workshop. Careerwave also will develop and lead workshops for companies that prefer to have trained coaches or trainers leading their sessions.
Careerwave’s Enhanced Workshop program is efficient and affordable for any company. The highly efficient platform combined with sophisticated programs and expert leadership development specialists and coaches allows for high touch programs at a fraction of the cost of traditional leadership development.
The key to developing better leaders is understanding how people grow and change, and what kind of support they need every step of the way. Our team of psychologists and coaches have used the best research in psychology, training, coaching and public health to understand what kind of support your leaders need and when they need it. And we help you provide exactly what they need.
Careerwave’s Enhanced Workshop Program is an effective way for companies to move from a partial workshop or classroom approach to a full stack, comprehensive growth experience for their managers.
Todd Murtha is CEO of Careerwave. Todd is a former workplace psychologist and CEO of a 350-person internet company. He is a frequent speaker on leadership, coaching and technology.
Careerwave’s technology-based leadership coaching service is effective and affordable enough to provide a coach to every manager. Whether you need to coach 1 leader or 100, and whether you need a full program or just an addition to your current program, we can build a solution for you. To learn more, contact us at info@careerwave.me, or visit careerwave.me.
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