Did you know developing leaders could be the best thing that ever happens to your business? Forbes shared a new full-time worker study that shows big benefits for promoting from within rather than hiring from outside.
Here are a few interesting highlights from the study:
- 71% of employees felt it’s easier to scale up a business when you promote from within.
- 66% preferred to be managed by someone who was promoted internally.
- 56% believe it’s better for morale to hire from inside.
Also interesting is this fact from Forbes: Contrary to popular belief, managers who are promoted from within make higher salaries than outside hires. They’re also 10% more likely to run highly productive teams.
Those are all impressive numbers, but how do you build leaders inside your organization? Below, Leadership Resources shares 3 secrets showing how to develop leaders at your company.
Secret #1: Leadership is Learned Behavior
Leadership isn’t inborn, although some people seem to be naturally great leaders. In actuality, it’s a skill people can learn through desire, focus, and engaging with effective leadership development approaches.
In the business world, leadership development is the process of an organization investing in people to nourish the expansion of their leadership skill sets. The best leadership development programs prepare emerging leaders to embrace leadership roles and adapt to new challenges with confidence and optimism.
This also involves the key quality of having a growth mindset, meaning you view changing conditions as opportunities to succeed in new ways rather than feeling fearful. Again, a growth mindset isn’t something you’re born with. Great leaders learn to develop great interpersonal skills, which almost anyone can do with the right leadership education.
Leadership education involves using tools and methods that are most likely to lead to long-term personal and professional success. An organization like Leadership Resources serves the vital role of providing effective leadership development and a wealth of helpful educational resources.
The results of leadership development are evident in company metrics that show increased productivity, higher employee engagement, better job satisfaction, and consistency in reaching company goals. By learning certain methodologies and applying them to the workplace, a flourishing leader inspires teams of other people to accomplish amazing things.
Secret #2: Developing Leaders Need Help With Their Leadership Styles
Even as your company is wondering how to develop leaders in your organization, you’re wondering how to become a leader in the first place. Most people don’t know the basics of building teams or what their personal leadership style is until they pursue leadership education.
Every business contains diverse people with a variety of approaches to life and leadership. Whether these workers have already received any leadership training or not, some of their approaches are more productive than others.
Certain behaviors and qualities are most strongly correlated with business success. How familiar are you with the concept of emotional intelligence? If you’re looking to become a better leader or nurture better leadership at your organization, now’s the time to learn about EQ.
A person’s EQ is even more important than their IQ in terms of successfully leading teams of their colleagues. Research from Harvard and the National Bureau of Economic Research shows that people with high EQ are better team players who keep others on task and accomplish complex tasks more efficiently, both working individually or in teams.
Secret #3: Leadership Development Isn’t a One-Size-Fits-All Approach
Leadership development follows its own path for each person and each company. There’s no single approach that works at every organization in the world because every environment has its own unique needs and quirks.
Your company’s leadership program must be carefully customized and individualized, or it won’t be effective. The most successful leadership development programs take a thoughtful and well-planned strategic effort that plans for at least one to three years into your organization’s future.
To customize your leadership development program, work with a leadership coach who has experience with addressing topics like cultural change, growth-focused leadership, strategic planning, and succession planning.
Leadership Resources: The Secret to Success in Developing Leaders
It takes time and support to develop leaders who can become your company’s next generation of superstar C-suite executives and stellar department managers. Experts recommend engaging with fully customizable leadership development programs as opposed to following traditional training programs that are less effective.
Leadership Resources is your secret to developing leaders from within your company and supporting their drive to succeed. To learn more, download our guide to identifying your company’s future leaders and taking their skills to the next level.
