Leadership Development for Results

Author: Roy Wooten

Professional development is a key to retaining quality staff. Yet too many companies fall into the same pattern of leadership development. Senior leaders attend an annual retreat then spend the rest of their professional development budgets on each traveling their separate ways for conferences specific to their profession expertise. Mid level and line supervisors abhor a few half day or day long trainings where a senior leader or outside trainer provides a boring lecture on how they should be supervising. If results are expected in supervisor and leader performance, then the current leadership development model should be abolished in the garbage pile of non-effective practices.

Professional development is about behavior change. No one would take such an approach to stop smoking or lose weight. Living healthy includes daily or every other day aerobic activity for 30-50 minutes according to the fitness gurus. What fitness expert would recommend an exercise program of aerobic activity for ten to sixteen hours once a month? Behavior change takes time to take effect and the information-dump approach to professional development waste precious professional development budgets.

Professional development achieves change results: 1. When the appropriate interactive adult learning environment is presented. More information is retained when information is provided through multiple learning styles and in small enough groups where discussion and interaction reinforce the training objectives. 2. When professionals develop specific plans on how to implement the changes. Professionals need to have time during training to develop goals based upon the information, develop action steps to reaching the goals, assign time lines, describe how they will know when the goals are accomplished and choose a way to reward themselves when the goal is met. 3. When professionals find accountability partners to help them succeed. Whether another supervisor, their supervisor, or a friend outside the organization, sharing their plans with another who can ask them about their progress will help the behavior change take hold. 4. When training is provided in short but frequent sessions. A couple of hours focused on a topic is about as long as the current workforce can maintain attention and retention loss is significantly related to the amount of information provided. Providing two hour sessions every couple of weeks gives each professional the right amount of time to soak up the information and begin working on their plan. 5. When they believe top management is buying in to the professional development plan. What is important to the senior leaders is usually important to other managers and supervisors within the organization. Visible support for the professional development program from the top of the organization will help it yield results.

Next time you are planning how to spend your professional development budget, put these budget saving ideas to work for you. You and those you lead will see results!

About the author: Roy Wooten is Founder and CEO of Wootens Success Solutions, an organizational development and training firm located in Midland, Texas. www.successsolutions.org. This article may be republished in its entirety with appropriate attribution. Author requests a copy of all republished articles.