The need for leadership development is clear and urgent in business organizations. In fact, a survey shows that 80% of respondents considered leadership to be a top priority for their organizations.
A separate McKinsey study further revealed that nine in 10 CEOs rated leadership development as the most important issue in the human capital component of their operations.
You might be wondering why leadership development is in such high demand in today’s business environment.
Like it or not, leadership development portrays a significant opportunity for organizations to grab a competitive advantage in their industries.
By hiring leaders, businesses can gain a huge competitive advantage that allows them to improve bottom line, increase success when navigating change, and drive strategy execution.
When businesses look beyond developing senior executives to unlock the complete potential of their talent pools, they can magnify agility and increase everyone’s ability to make educated decisions.
More importantly, effective leadership development can attract, develop and retain talent. It can bolster employee engagement, improve the business’s ability to deal with issues in the pipeline, and reduce the costs linked with employee turnover.
Also, leadership development can open more lucrative career opportunities that would otherwise be unavailable. This makes leadership development a good investment for organizations.
So, what are the methods you can adopt to improve leadership development? Keep reading to find out.
Design a leadership development plan
The reality is that achieving leadership development is a marathon and not a sprint.
For you to achieve, let alone improve, leadership development, you need to design a comprehensive plan that takes into account your short-term and long-term goals. A rule of thumb is to evaluate where you are professional.
List your workplace tendencies, weaknesses, and strengths to determine potential areas that need to be improved and anticipate issues that could occur in your leadership development.
Evaluating yourself can also be a valuable way to reflect on your limitations and motivational drivers, which is vital in gaining a more holistic view of your leadership style.
When establishing a leadership development plan, you may also need to set an attainable goal and chart a course of action to achieve it.
Initially, determine and prioritize a goal you can work toward to improve your professional effectiveness.
You can collect specific ideas on how to improve your goals and elicit feedback on how you are doing to measure progress and stay on track.
Interact with your network
To build on the previous point, interacting with your professional network and connecting with like-minded peers is also essential in determining the skills you need to hone to become an effective leader.
With constant interaction, you can make things that seem theoretical become more practical and applicable in real-life situations.
Leaders often need to connect with other business owners to share experiences and learn from one another.
When you know how and when to reach out, you can build beneficial partnerships and alliances that will be vital as you move along in your professional career.
Besides, networking can also be a great way to stay on top of trends and maintain your visibility in a highly competitive industry.
Whether you like it or not, no one can do it alone in today’s global environment. When you can bounce off ideas with other leaders, you can build a successful team that can anticipate organizational changes.
Discussing issues and approaches as well as problems and solutions can be motivating. It empowers you to tap into greater creativity that allows for the production of innovative products, services, and solutions.
More importantly, these external people will also be the catalysts that draw your attention to innovative business opportunities, new directions, and stakeholders necessary to achieve the key organizational objectives.
Take part in leadership training
Taking part in leadership training is another way for you to improve your decision-making abilities, empower teams and achieve outstanding business results.
Other than the chance of gaining and practicing the skills needed to inspire employees and influence others, you will be exposed to individuals you can rely on for support and from whom you can learn and grow.
Honing your leadership abilities with like-minded individuals can be advantageous. This is because it provides you with a low-risk environment for assessing and fine-tuning your goals when you encounter setbacks.
So, what does leadership training actually look like? Leadership training usually encourages leaders and managers to do the following:
- Search for new ways of developing and managing people
- Create innovative business opportunities
- Take on expansive social issues that the business faces
In doing so, successful leaders can enhance value creation, engage their employees, create efficiencies, and transform organizations to deliver better results.
How do you start leadership training? There is a variety of ways that you can begin leadership development, but perhaps the most popular for business graduates is opting for Aston University’s online DBA.
With Aston’s online DBA program, you will gain the necessary skills to succeed in a cutthroat business environment.
You will be introduced to simple and complex concepts that can help you understand the process of business and management research.
It also allows you to develop impact-related research to educate the operations and decision-making within business, while emphasizing your future professional development.
Leadership development programs such as the executive DBA at Aston University is a part-time distance learning courses that can be completed in four to six years. Among the requirements, you may need during the admission process are the following:
- CV/resume
- Personal statement
- Undergraduate degree certificate and transcript
- Master’s degree certificate and transcript (in a relevant subject field)
- Two academic references dated within two years
You may also need a minimum of five years of experience in a senior role and a copy of your passport depending on your chosen academic institution.
Becoming an effective business leader
As the world deals with risks and uncertainties brought by the COVID-19 pandemic, the need for effective business leaders is no longer an option. You can work towards becoming an effective business leader by enrolling in a DBA course today.
