Send to Kindle

You’d think this would be the first thing to do, but if you’ve been following this blog, look how prepared you are to answer the question:

What is the profile of the “perfect” leader for your organization?

If such a person showed up, would you be able to recognize him or her? If yes, how would you know? How will you describe this person?

You could answer this question one of two ways:

• Using science and empirical methods proven to be best practices by other organizations.
• Using art, a nice way of saying that you will use your gut, experience, and tribal knowledge.

Whichever method you choose, be sure to do at least 20 to 40 % of the other method. Just to balance it out and to validate your conclusions.

Now go back to the list of names and do a gap analysis between each of your leaders, and the ideal profile. This gap will give you the training needs. Then, determine whether the gap needs to be bridged using training, or some other method.

Send to Kindle

By now, you are probably ready to begin training your leaders. After all, there is something called “analysis paralysis.” Bear with me as we go thru a couple of foundational elements required to maximize ROI on your training investment.

It goes without saying that training is an expense (we’ll have more to say about this later). You must be careful with who you train, otherwise not only will you be held accountable for wasting time and money, but you will frustrate your co-workers as well. Don’t lose your credibility and don’t go on a crusade!

Go back to your lists and put a mark against those who are:

• Exemplary leaders, or adequate, and ready to go to the next level.
• Those who struggling to meet minimum requirements.

Rearrange the names between lists if necessary.

Now for an important step: how many of the names on your list will be ready to receive training and development input of any kind?

There could be valid reasons for not being ready to receive: they are in the middle of a project, a vacation looms, health issues etc.

If they are not ready to receive because they are not open minded or “coachable,” have a heart to heart with them as well as their manager. It is not that such people cannot be trained, but they need to be put on notice that the organization is watching, and ready to help. But the employee needs to meet the organization half way, and be ready to receive.