Training future leaders has always been one of my favored pursuits, from my 12-year military career to my current entrepreneurial pursuits. I’ve always believed that leaders are the lifeblood of any organization, and they can directly influence its success or collapse. That’s why a good leadership development program with specific, tailor-fitted goals is a great secret weapon any business owner should have.
The goals of a leadership development program generally incorporate developing the best leaders for the business, ensuring a healthy leadership pipeline, and boosting profitability. These goals will help you grow, retain, and attract the best managers in the industry.
This article talks about the general goals of an excellent leadership development program and why setting the right goals is crucial to your business’ growth and success in a demanding, dynamic business environment. We will also discuss the value of setting SMARTER goals for leadership development, and the pitfalls you must avoid to ensure your leadership development plan becomes a crucial tool in ensuring business longevity and success.
The Biggest Mistake in Goal-Setting
Sometimes, goal-setting is misconstrued as an opportunity to lay out everything you envision for your business. When you start out with this type of mindset, it could get pretty chaotic and overwhelming.
This is perhaps the biggest mistake in goal-setting — setting too many goals, especially if they’re vague and lacking definition and focus.
Too many goals, particularly when they’re indefinite and seemingly perfunctory, will only lead to:
- Wasted resources and time
- Diluted focus
- Poor engagement
- Confusion and disorder
- Restricted productivity
- Unrealized objectives
Remember, “The more, the merrier” doesn’t apply to goal-setting. You must be deliberate and focused when setting goals for your leadership development program.
Why You Should Set SMARTER Leadership Development Goals
Setting the right leadership development goals is crucial to success. This gives participants a clear picture of what needs to be accomplished and how these should be executed. Furthermore, it lets you enjoy the power of tunnel vision so you can accurately center your resources and time toward all factors that can contribute to achieving these goals.
Consider the SMARTER framework when setting leadership development goals:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Actionable
- Risky
- Time-keyed
- Exciting
- Relevant
Setting SMARTER goals for leadership development effectively engages, motivates, and pushes your participants to step out of their comfort zone. Here are some of the key benefits:
- Increased engagement and productivity
- Better teamwork
- Better formulation and implementation of leadership concepts
- Sustained momentum
- Persistent progress in eventually realizing the goals
- Unified direction
Goals of a Leadership Development Program
From the initial leadership stages to senior leadership, your managers must be able to count on the organization to help them continuously grow.
Generally, a business leadership development program aims to achieve these goals:
1. To Ensure a Healthy Leadership Pipeline
The advancement of a business largely depends on the advancement of its leaders. A leadership development program will be useful in this regard, instrumental in ensuring that your leaders, no matter what stage they’re in in their career, are continuously nurtured and supported.
In a 2023 Gartner survey, where they tapped over 850 Human resources (HR) managers from different major industries across 60 countries, it was revealed that the top priority for the year is leadership effectiveness.
HR managers struggle with leadership succession because they can’t fill gaps in the organization with the right leaders. Hence, the need to develop excellent leaders from within the company and attract the best from outside has become a top priority.
This can be accomplished through a solid leadership development program that focuses on building critical leadership skills and competencies and ensuring diversity and proficiency in the leadership bench.
2. To Develop the Kind of Leaders the Business Needs
Continuous education and exposure to relevant experiences and opportunities through leadership development are the keys to ensuring a healthy leadership pipeline. You must tailor-fit knowledge and skills to the company’s unique needs, expectations, and culture. You must also build critical leadership values and competencies relevant to the business, such as:
- Decision-making
- Self-awareness
- Resilience
- Critical thinking
- Problem-solving
It’s not enough that you have a long list of emerging, mid-level, and senior managers. The most important thing is that all your leaders are skilled and knowledgeable enough to get the job done.
A friend used to work with a fast-growing pharmaceutical company focused on buying out smaller firms. As the organization grew, so did its need for driven, skilled managers capable and eager to lead their teams through various challenges and obstacles.
However, despite investing significant funds in expansion, the company failed to invest in leadership development. The employees who managed to move up the corporate ladder were ill-equipped to handle the demands of leadership. Most senior managers were recruited by other companies, enticed by their lengthy and impressive experiences in the industry.
In just over 5 years, the company began losing control, and product sales dwindled. They lost their footing in the industry ranking, and to make up for the large losses, they began reducing expenditure by letting go of their more tenured staff.
It was too late, though. Unfortunately, the company succumbed to the rising market demands and tough competition. Today, the organization still stands, but it’s significantly smaller than when it started and is no longer one of the top companies in the pharmaceutical industry. All these are because of inefficient planning and implementation of leadership development.
3. To Bring In Profit
Ultimately, the goal of leadership development is for the business to earn profit to continue functioning. A company’s profitability ratio — the financial benchmarks used to assess its ability to generate profit within a specific period — highly depends on its leaders since their actions and decisions can directly impact all business functions.
Consider these business areas where leaders play a significant role in influencing profits:
Company Culture
Leaders are pivotal in establishing the beliefs, behaviors, and attitudes adopted and enforced by the entire team. The business’ efficiency and performance depend highly on how positive (or negative) a company’s work culture is.
Leaders with the right vision can influence their team members to think and act in specific ways. They serve as role models worthy of emulation by their teams. As a result, team members will align with their vision, creating a work culture thriving in collaboration, synergy, trust, and unity.
A great company culture begins with positive leadership and forges the way for productivity and profitability.
Employee Engagement
Engaged employees are eager to contribute toward achieving company goals and willing to do whatever they can to ensure the business’ success. They are committed to the team and clearly understand that their work directly impacts the business’ ability to thrive, advance, and generate income and profits.
Based on a State of the Global Workplace report, 85% of employees are not actively engaged in their work. This staggering figure results in losses of approximately $7 trillion. These employees generally report to work simply to accomplish their assigned tasks — nothing more. Some report to work only for the sake of income.
The best leaders can bring out the best in their people. When they’re able to motivate, inspire, and push their team members to excel and grow in their chosen field, productivity and profitability will thrive as well — that’s 17% higher productivity and 21% higher profitability, according to the same study.
Conflict Resolution
Conflicts are inevitable in any organization, but a leader’s ability to quickly and expertly manage conflicts will directly affect team motivation, engagement, and culture. When team members know they can count on their leaders to handle workplace conflicts judiciously, they will accept it simply as part of the job. After all, no 2 individuals can always agree on all matters, much less in a diverse, flourishing workplace.
Final Thoughts
Developing excellent leaders within your organization should be among your primary objectives as a business owner. This is a great way to ensure your business is always in good hands. This Is also a great strategy to retain top talent and attract the best leaders in the industry.
Sancus Leadership can help you develop a unique leadership development plan that addresses your most pressing needs. When you can set some time aside to brainstorm on creating a tailor-fitted leadership plan for your business, reach out to us, and we’ll be eager to help!
