The Point: Leadership development is the need of the hour for 2015 (or it should be!) More and more organizations are recognizing this need, which is resulting in billions of dollars being spent on training C-suite executives. However, a leadership development program is effective only when the objectives are clearly defined. Here are 10 leadership development goals that you can consider working in 2015… Enjoy!
#10 Greater Interaction With Your Team
Stop hiding behind your desk. Open your cabin door on a regular basis, and try to interact with your colleagues and employees. Emphasis on interaction. Most CEOs like to speak in monologue, even in front of an audience. Avoid that, and instead, increase two-way communication with your team.
#9 Action Based on Data
Intuition is not enough when you are leading a business. You need to stay up-to-date on your data, not only from the company archives, but from market surveys, reports, white papers, and trade journals etc. While innovation is essential for long-term growth, when there are budgetary concerns, you need implement strategies that is known to work.
#8 Strive for Clarity
Today’s business climate is marred by volatility. Leaders need to be on the go to stay at par with competition. While this calls for leaders that are flexible, it is equally important that they should know to communicate with clarity. Whether it is informing your team of a new business policy or introducing a new communication system in the office, you should learn the art of getting straight to the point without wasting a moment.
#7 Meaningful Messages
This follows from the previous point. Improving communication is one thing, but needless meetings, emails, memos, and presentations only interrupt your team instead of helping them work better. So, while you should entertain casual conversations with your colleagues from time to time, for the most part, you should speak only to add value to your listeners.
#6 Be Open to Criticism
In this age where employee/management trust is at an all-time low, those leaders are lucky that a team that speaks honestly to them. Once you assure people that you will give their opinions a fair hearing (even if they go against something you said and did earlier), you not only build trust with your team, but you always know what is going on in their mind.
#5 Talent Development
The leader of tomorrow actively participates in finding and nurturing employees that will implement those instructions to the best of their abilities. If you want to lead the best team, then you essentially need to handpick the topmost talent in the organization.
#4 Pick Out Future Leaders
In line with #5, a mark of a true leader is that he prepares others to take his position when his time is up. If you the company that you ran with such fervent passion to reach new horizons, then you need to develop leaders from your team that will carry your mission forward with the same vigor.
#3 Return to the Basics
As mentioned above, leaders are responsible for taking fast-paced decisions. However, instead of constantly focusing on the short-term decisions, you need to go back to the mission statement of the company. See whether the company is going on track and whether the mission statement needs some amendment or not.
#2 Be Open to Suggestions
See #6. As you encourage people to share their opinions, you get to understand a crucial business issue from all angles. For instance, it is the sales team that knows which marketing messages work the best, which can help you create the most effective marketing strategy on a tight budget.
#1 Empower your Team
Finally and most importantly, a wise and dynamic leader is essential to boost a company’s bottom-line. However, when all the thinking and decision making rests on one man’s shoulders, then he wouldn’t be able to avoid burnout for long. What needs to be done is to teach every person on your team to think for themselves. They should be able to contribute meaningfully when it comes to finding solutions for unique business problems. This way, the success of the company will not be dependent on individuals.
Summary
To sum up, as we enter into 2015, you should create leadership development goals for yourself and make all efforts possible to achieve them to stay on top of your game.
If you’d like more information about Tip of the Spear’s Business Advisory Services, consisting of Centered Executive Coaching, Leadership Development through ‘The Leadership Challenge’ methodology, and Communication Skills Training for Leaders use the CONTACT US page of this website.
