New Ideas For Leadership Training

A recent study by Harvard Business Review revealed that 58 per cent of people say that they trust strangers more than their boss. Now that is a large chunk of the population. What we can learn from this statistic is that there are fundamental flaws in the way that leadership and managerial skills have been instilled into our working executives. And they need a revisit so that our working environment and efficiency at work can change.

A common step taken by most organisations in this direction is to train their managers together and recruits to become leaders and bring them together as one in a successful leadership circle. Various leadership training programs have started to do the job. But there are even figures which raise questions on these pieces of training. A study has shown that nearly 60 per cent of managers have said that they haven’t received any formal training.

This brings our attention to the question; do we really need a separate training program? Is the extra expense worth it? Is the program effective? The answer is, No. These programs are an additional burden of expenditure on the company. These are mostly ineffective beyond the introduction period after which the employees go back to their ways. To cultivate high-performance teams from your leaders, the most cost-effective and fruit baring method to ensure employee training and leadership development is a combination of on the job training and assessment.

The reasons to support on the job training are as follows:

• Leadership programs are short term courses with short term impact.
• Most trainees don’t actively engage with the course.

To overcome these drawbacks, a comprehensive plan to slowly build leadership skills in managers has to be put in place.

The plan for on the job training includes multiple factors and requirements. The program needs a training manager who oversees the whole process of training and orientation. Every objective that the program aims to attain must be written down and thought upon. Communication is key. There should be proper information sharing between the members of the team.

Assigning mentors and gradually and subtly feeding the trainees with the skills required is the way to go. This method takes more time to be effective in any way, but guarantees result way better than the conventional programs.

Most great leaders are a result of years of learning, unlearning and relearning. It takes some even decades to master the skill of leadership. To get the best leader, we must hire them while they are young and train them in leadership and other office etiquettes.

Finding creative ways to engage the top employees and impart relevant knowledge is an important aspect of this endeavour. The training process should be a continuous long one with frequent reinforcements in the form of one to one sessions.

Coming up with ideas to engage employees, families and superiors at events like annual meet can be an excellent way to encourage team building. Finding reasons why every employee should sign up for this training will help lure them into the course and in turn, benefit the company.

Based on the type of business that the firm looks after, the training department head has to build a comprehensive training plan. This plan should include every employee and the exact course of action that will be followed. This adds personalisation and a better chance at serving the purpose by making good leaders and team players out of the employees.

If this system of on the job training is implemented with the right strategy, it can far surpass any benefits that the conventional seminar-style training could ever offer. The changes, combined with the cost-effective nature of training, will benefit the company for years.