LEADERSHIP RESOURCES BLOG

Growth is the goal of almost every business. A growing business brings in more clients, more deals, more revenue, and more opportunities for future success. When you’re looking to add strategic planning services to your business, you’ll likely be looking for someone to help manage the complexities of business growth.

Rapid growth also brings more risk. Now your employees are at risk of becoming overwhelmed and bogged down by their heavy workloads. Your company might struggle to have the resources in place to continue serving your clients and maintaining profitability.

At this stage in the company’s lifecycle, it’s essential to have a strong strategic plan. 

What Is Strategic Planning?

Strategic planning is a process that defines a company’s direction and allows its employees to make thoughtful decisions about allocating resources to accomplish strategic goals. The best strategic plans also include clear processes for implementation and maintenance.

Many companies work with strategic planning consultants to develop their strategic plans. This type of business consultant guides the strategic planning process and uses their wisdom to ensure it heads in the right direction. They also support the company as it pursues its strategic plan using a step-by-step approach.

Strategic planning isn’t a one-size-fits-all process because it must be customized to each company’s needs, goals, resources, and culture. When properly tailored to the company, a strategic plan should lead to measurable success in key areas like lead generation, revenue growth, employee productivity, and company profitability.

For a growing company, strategic planning ensures growth leads to growth. Otherwise, growth can lead to a period of struggle and conflict that hampers your company’s ability to succeed.

Difference Between Goals and Objectives in Strategic Planning

The process of strategic planning comes with many terms and definitions that could be slightly confusing to your employees. While we all know the everyday definitions of words like “goals” and “objectives,” strategic planning service providers have specific meanings when it comes to strategic planning in business.

Your company’s goals are its intended outcomes from the strategic planning process. Think of the goals as the goalposts on a football field, where the ball is headed. It takes time, practice, and planning to reach those goalposts.

Along the way, the objectives are the specific steps it takes to reach the goalposts. They’re the team’s plays that help them make it down the football field toward the end zone.

Another common term is the strategic goal. This is the overall goal of your entire strategic plan. Companies should have a wide variety of shorter goals, like yearly goals and 5-year goals, but the strategic goal is the overarching goal that broadly encompasses all of what your strategic plan is striving to achieve.

What About Remote Strategic Planning?

In today’s business world, where the COVID-19 pandemic has had a lasting impact, remote work is the new normal. This has increased the demand for remote strategic planning services that bring people together in the spirit of managing growth effectively.

There’s no need to worry that working remotely will hinder developing or following your strategic plan. Using the right tools and strategic planning consultants, any company can implement a strategic plan while working from anywhere in the world.

Virtual strategic planning sessions are now bringing people together just as effectively as in-person sessions.

Getting Buy-in for Strategic Planning Services From Key Stakeholders

Getting buy-in from key stakeholders is vital to the success of any strategic planning project. This buy-in process starts with effective communication. Project executives should clearly explain the project goals, mission, and plan for each stakeholder. They should also make clear the benefits and impact of the project. Understanding the stakeholder motivations and values is critical to building buy-in. 

Getting buy-in for strategic planning services from key stakeholders also requires defining the needs of each stakeholder. Not all stakeholders are there for approvals; some are simply to gain awareness and provide input. Prioritize the project and set deadlines for key stakeholders to provide feedback. Make sure to create an implementation plan for the feedback and comments of key stakeholders. Then, work with your project team to define a strategy for bringing in strategic planning services.

Strategic Planning Services From the Pros

Leadership Resources provides business coaching and strategic planning services to help companies supercharge growth and manage it wisely. We offer a wide range of services including developing strategic plans, business coaching, helping emerging leaders hone interpersonal skills, and much more. 

Support your growing business by making effective strategic plans that support a long and successful future. Connect with Leadership Resources today to discuss setting up in-person and/or virtual strategic planning sessions.

To learn more about smart strategic planning, please download our whitepaper about building the best operating system for a growing company.

Succession plans are proven to support business growth and success. Research shows that an effective succession planning process can raise a company’s valuation and investor returns by as much as 20% to 25% annually. Whether you are looking to develop basic transition plans for managers or implementing a complete CEO succession planning process, a well thought out succession plan for a business can make the difference between an assured future and uncertainty.

Having a succession plan in place also encourages your employees to stick around and feel happy with their jobs. The succession plan provides a clear roadmap to the future that allows them to picture their place in the company’s winning journey.

The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) particularly recommends additional succession planning efforts during uncertain times, like a major company transition or national economic crisis. At challenging turning points like these, your people need extra support and reassurance about what’s coming down the road.

What Is a Succession Plan?

A succession plan is a document that arises from thinking strategically about a company’s business activities and identifying key personnel. While a strategic planning model doesn’t always name people specifically, it outlines who’s in charge of certain roles and goals in the organization as it moves forward.

The succession planning process depends on a company’s desired outcomes. If there’s already a succession plan in place, but it’s inadequate, the focus will be on expanding and refining the plan. Often, succession planning involves building a new plan from the ground up.

Common succession planning activities include:

• Developing a clear vision and structure for a succession plan
• Incorporating the company’s mission statement into the plan
• Identifying future leaders and involving key stakeholders
• Creating a calendar of succession planning milestones
• Planning for unexpected events
• Deciding how conflicts and challenges should be handled
• Undergoing business coaching and strategic planning related to the succession plan

What Are the Succession Planning Best Practices?

Succession planning is a complex, ongoing, and individualized process. How your company handles its succession plan will naturally be different from any other company in the world.

Certain succession planning best practices are most likely to support success. Here’s an overview:

Think Strategically and Long-Term

A common saying in succession planning is “start with the end in mind.” Decide what your company’s desired outcomes are, and build backward from there. Who should hold key positions as the organization pursues its accomplishments?

Use Succession Planning Tools

Using the right succession planning tools is an essential part of the process. A company rarely develops an effective succession plan without using a structured and systematic framework. 

Consider Talent Development

Don’t underestimate the impact of your company’s hiring and retention policies on the success of your succession plan. Incorporate talent development and clarify how your company will invest in recruitment and talent development resources.

Allow for Variations in Leadership Styles

A succession planning model usually identifies people by roles, but it’s vital to keep in mind that companies employ actual human beings, not just roles. Your team is full of variation and diversity to embrace as a natural part of the succession planning process. The succession plan must adapt to various leadership styles.

Work With a Business Coach

Ensure your company is getting the most out of its succession planning process by working with an experienced and reputable business coach. Their expertise will guide your process toward the best possible outcomes for your succession plan.

Launching Your Succession Planning Process

Leadership Resources teaches techniques that supercharge a company’s growth while leveraging its strengths. We offer a wide range of leadership development services including building succession plans, developing strategic thinking, forging new bonds with business coaches, nourishing interpersonal skills, fostering emotional intelligence, and much more. 

Now’s the time to strengthen your company’s plan for a successful future. Enhance your knowledge of effective succession planning by downloading our free guide.

Here’s a surprising employee engagement statistic: A new Gallup poll shows 38% of workers are fully engaged, which is the highest level since Gallup began tracking engagement more than 20 years ago.

In these times where a common refrain is “nobody wants to work anymore,” it seems counterintuitive that employees are engaged at such high levels. Even more surprising is that today’s high rate of employee engagement follows a historic drop where engagement levels fell to as low as 13%, according to this same Gallup study.

What’s going on here? Researchers say the COVID-19 pandemic reshaped how U.S. workers view their employers. After experiencing the terrifying impact of a health crisis, many people are no longer willing to accept poor leadership from their managers. To put it another way, they’re totally engaged until they’re totally gone.

Why is Employee Engagement Important?

Despite an increase in benefits packages, many organizations struggle to retain employees due to lack of communication. Disengaged employees are twice as likely to quit within a year if their feelings about their work are not adequately communicated. Benefits don’t always translate into loyalty. Today’s workforce expects a comprehensive employee experience that aligns with the organization’s brand and culture. Organizations must be creative to attract and retain talent and take steps to ensure employees are happy in their roles.

Today’s workers want positive role models with highly effective leadership styles. Otherwise, they’ll decide to jump ship to another employer. With this in mind, here are 4 secrets that will help you attract, engage, and retain top talent.

Maintain Clarity in Communication

One of the most common reasons why employees disengage is a lack of communication about company policies, changes, and expectations. When people feel disconnected from the reasons behind policies that impact them, they’re more likely to give up and look for employment elsewhere.

Communication goes hand in hand with empowerment. A company’s communication with its employees shouldn’t be a blast of informational updates. Instead, it should be a two-way interaction where the employees always feel empowered to play a role in company processes and provide feedback.

The Harvard Business Review reports that the following three communication-related employee engagement strategies are most likely to retain employees who are at the point of considering leaving the company:

• Ask for their help. Welcome their diverse perspectives, even when their opinions are hard to hear. Show that the company is listening to their feedback.
• Give them agency. Empower them with the ability to make changes that will improve their daily working conditions.
• Focus on outcomes. Demonstrate that certain circumstances will reliably lead to certain positive outcomes for the employee, plus the company as a whole.

Address Social Issues and Tensions

Today’s employees are keenly aware of how their employers handle social issues like economic disparity, racism, imbalances of power, climate change, healthcare, and civil rights. Any employer that ignores these issues is putting employee engagement in jeopardy.

For example, Gallup found that the death of George Floyd increased racial tensions in many U.S. organizations. This situation caused many employees to reexamine working for employers that seemed unaware of the incident’s impact on their staff or unwilling to address it. 

Using effective leadership strategies to support workers and listening to their concerns during difficult times will encourage workplace engagement.

Support Employees Through Rough Periods

A period of transition at the company, such as a company merger or time of rapid growth, is stressful for your employees and brings up emotions like uncertainty and fear. Your employees will need extra support to navigate these phases.

It is important to remember that employees are human beings who sometimes need extra help coping with change. Your leaders will need to use emotional intelligence to provide support and reassurance.

This involves the dual tasks of maintaining current employee engagement and continuing to attract top talent to your company. If prospective employees can sense that something about your company seems unstable or chaotic, they’re far less likely to accept a job offer.

Help all of your employees—brand-new hires and longtime employees—picture a future that’s not so rocky. Use employee engagement strategies like talent development and succession planning to demonstrate that each employee holds an important place in the organization and will play a key role in its future.

Provide Leadership Development, Not Just Training

Retaining your top employees takes strategic thinking and careful planning. For meaningful and lasting change, experts recommend incorporating leadership development programs, as opposed to traditional training programs.

Traditional training is simply a one-off experience. The employee takes away a few tips but doesn’t necessarily gain deeper wisdom about personal or professional growth. By contrast, robust leadership development programs fully support each individual employee as they develop new leadership skills, knowledge, and talent. The experience also has a lasting, positive impact.

Start Improving Your Employee Engagement Efforts Today

At Leadership Resources, we provide the leadership development programs it takes to retain superstar employees and keep them engaged. We can help your company with a wide variety of employee engagement strategies like improving interpersonal skills, building emotional intelligence, conducting strategic business planning, and many other aspects of running a successful company.

To learn more, download our ebook about identifying and leveraging employee leadership potential.

Virtual leadership training is the perfect opportunity to take bold steps forward in your company’s leadership development plan. In a world that’s increasingly digital, virtual coaching fits right in.

Today’s workforce is a hybrid mix of in-person and remote workers. A recent Gallup poll found that 45% of all Americans work remotely at least partially, and 25% are now exclusively working remotely.

When it’s time for your company to engage these workers in virtual leadership development activities, certain techniques make the most impact. Here’s how to get the most out of your virtual business leadership coaching.

What is Virtual Leadership Training?

Before you begin, plan to set aside enough time for your participants to focus on the topic without other interruptions. To maximize buy-in and productivity, be willing to schedule sessions during nontraditional hours that best suit your remote and virtual participants. 

Decide on an overall timeframe and how the sessions will be divided into a series of virtual interactions. How you divide up your program depends on your goals, timeframe, and the individual needs of your participants. 

Some virtual leadership training programs take place in short bi-weekly sessions for six weeks to six months. Other seminars are longer, more intensive, multi-hour sessions that take place less often.

Arrange Reliable Virtual Communication Methods

In a traditional classroom setting, it’s fairly easy to control how the room is set up. As long as everyone has a chair, you likely have a productive session with in-person connections between the leadership coach and the participants.

Contrast this with a virtual leadership training setup. The individual settings of each participant vary widely from professional settings to personal living rooms. Everyone is relying on their computers, smartphones, and audiovisual equipment to work smoothly throughout the experience. The leadership development coach can’t control as much of the experience as they could in person, although an experienced coach has a strong background in virtual coaching.

To combat the challenges of the virtual environment, establish how communication will take place well in advance. Set standards for communication methods, times, and professional boundaries. Using Zoom meetings, for example, give everyone ample time to set up Zoom on their devices. 

Also, prepare everyone with a bit of testing to ensure things will work correctly for the virtual leadership development activities. Encourage them to share any technical issues that could interfere with your upcoming sessions and proactively resolve them in advance.

Take Advantage of Graphs, Clips, Chats, and More

Virtual business leadership coaching is the perfect setting for digital features and options that enhance learning. Seize the opportunity to provide graphs, charts, video clips, and other educational materials that support the educational experience.

The chat function on your videoconferencing software offers an excellent way to boost communication and build buy-in. Encourage participants to answer questions and share their concerns throughout the leadership development process. 

Incorporate Breaks and Catch-ups

Some participants will inevitably miss virtual sessions or miss out on portions of sessions due to lost connections, interruptions, illness, and more. Head off any gaps in learning by offering catch-up sessions and emailed materials that keep everyone on track. 

Take the shame out of being absent! It’s just a part of virtual learning and shouldn’t slow down the leadership development process.

And remember, remote learning can be just as demanding and draining as any other type of work. Allow for plenty of breaks, especially if you’re hosting long sessions. Encourage your participants to refresh their minds and bodies so they can continue to learn and work productively.

Choose the Right Virtual Leadership Development Coach

Get the most out of your company’s virtual leadership development activities by working strategically. Provide your team with the resources they need to succeed. Experts say the best way to make a meaningful and lasting impact is with virtual leadership development programs instead of one-off virtual training programs. 

Leadership Resources provides customized virtual business leadership coaching services for thousands of successful companies around the world. To learn more about our wide range of individualized leadership programs, please contact Leadership Resources. We’re here to help you accomplish your goals, whether in person or virtually!

Every company has goals for the future, but some companies are more effective than others at accomplishing their goals. What separates a successful company from the rest?

The secret lies in creating a leadership development plan that serves as a roadmap for your company’s emerging leaders. This, in turn, allows productive steps toward success like goal-setting, allotting resources, following action plans, and retaining key leaders who inspire everyone to accomplish great things.

Here’s how to create and implement an effective leadership development program for your organization.

Why Is Leadership Development Important?

Today’s sophisticated leadership development programs are designed to build a richer and deeper talent pipeline. As a result, organizations can leverage their talent pools to create more sustainable success. Organizations with higher leadership maturity rates are nearly 11 times more likely to have a high percentage of talent builders. Developing leadership skills in organizations can increase the retention rate of talented employees and decrease turnover.

Begin with the Right Frame of Mind

Before you begin a new leadership development plan, take the time to prepare for this new stage in your company’s lifecycle. Observe your company from a neutral point of view and spend some time thinking about how things are vs. how they should be.

Cultivate an open state of mind through self-care and self-reflection. Encourage your entire organization to remain open to growth and change, from the executives to the lower level employees on the front lines.

Consider leadership development assessment questions like:

• Do your existing and developing leaders share a growth mindset?
• Is there a clear plan for the future at your company?
• What are your company’s goals, and are they realistic?
• Will your company culture accept or reject dramatic change?
• Do you have the people, resources, time, and structure to grow rapidly?
• How could this organization benefit from leadership development?
• Do you need a business consultant/leadership coach to guide you?

Asking these questions is a huge and important first step. However, the next stage is even more challenging: Sparking meaningful, long-lasting change within your organization.

Engage with a Business Strategy Consultant

Most companies find it difficult to evolve without the help of a business strategy consultant. Talented, experienced business consultants think strategically and teach leaders how to expand the skills it takes for the entire operation to embrace change and seize new opportunities.

Schedule a series of business consulting sessions that will allow you to get to know your leadership coach and understand their process. Ask questions to ensure there’s a good coach-team match between your consultant and your company.

How your consultant engages with your company will depend on your needs, current status, goals, and more. Your consultant can help you achieve essential strategic leadership activities like:

• Creating an entirely new business/leadership plan from scratch
• Revising an existing business plan to make it more effective
• Developing exceptional leaders within your ranks
• Building a solid hiring/retention plan
• Inspiring your workforce and building company morale
• Using leadership to survive tough periods like mergers and financial downturns
• Managing growth during periods of rapid expansion
• Creating leadership succession plans and planning strategically for the future

Set Goals and Measures of Success

Now it’s time to decide what leadership development success looks like for your organization. It’s exciting to see success on the horizon, but how will you get there? 

Work with your leadership coach to decide which measures and metrics you’ll use to track your success. Establish your current status and create benchmarks that will help you see your progress as you move forward toward your goals.

Smart goal-setting is typically one of the most challenging aspects of creating an effective leadership plan. For example, you might have aggressive sales goals for the end of the year, but there’s high turnover among your sales and marketing leaders. A smart goal will consider all contributing factors to ensure that the goal is achievable.

Another common challenge is a lack of emotionally intelligent leadership, which hampers a company’s ability to adapt and grow. Leaders with high emotional intelligence (EQ) can manage interpersonal interactions smoothly and productively. But a company with too many low-EQ leaders often has conflicts that interfere with productivity.

A good business strategy consultant helps you get to the bottom of issues like these and understand what’s at the core of your company’s persistent roadblocks. Perhaps you need to refine your company’s leadership development programs and implement new strategies that support growth and success.

Launching Your Effective Leadership Development Program

The best leadership development plan in the world won’t work unless you implement your plan effectively. Your team needs the leadership skills and resources it takes to move forward with confidence. 

For a meaningful, lasting impact on your organization, experts recommend ongoing leadership development programs as opposed to one-off training programs. At Leadership Resources, we have a long history of providing robust and customized leadership development programs for thousands of successful companies around the world.

Working with a leadership coach is one of the best ways to identify and develop leaders in your company. According to the International Society for Performance Improvement, leadership coaching has a 221% return on investment. An effective business strategy consultant supports positive leadership behaviors and helps create a clear plan everyone can accomplish together.

The first challenge, of course, is finding the right leadership coach. Choosing a leadership coach that fits into your organizational mindset for developing leaders can be a tricky task. Here are the key qualities of the best kind of business strategy consultant who will be the right fit for your organization.

Growth Mindset vs Fixed Mindset

Mindset is extremely important when it comes to developing leaders. Do you know the difference between a growth mindset vs a fixed mindset?

A fixed mindset holds the belief that no matter how much you try, change is impossible or impractical. When someone has a fixed mindset, they’re not open-minded enough to embrace change and often make decisions based on fear and assumptions.

By contrast, a growth mindset welcomes the opportunity to learn more and try new things. Someone with a growth mindset accepts that others have things to teach them, so they remain a “student of life” who’s always looking to expand their understanding of the world. For developing leaders in an organization, a leadership coach with a growth mindset is ideal.

In a business setting, a fixed mindset is a leadership limiter, and a growth mindset is a leadership accelerator. It’s almost impossible for someone with a fixed mindset to serve effectively in the role of a leadership coach. That’s why so many successful business strategy consultants have plenty of experience putting their growth mindsets to good use.

Clarity in Focus

Vagueness and ambiguity are contrary to the clarity it takes to focus on your business goals. There’s little value in receiving general advice that doesn’t necessarily apply to your unique situation.

Look for a leadership coach who provides the focus and clarity your team needs. Many leadership coaches are capable of providing basic advice that would benefit any run-of-the-mill company, but you need an experienced pro who provides specific and individualized insights.

Remember, a business strategy consultant isn’t a magician. They’ll need your company’s help and effort to make the process worthwhile. Stay engaged with them and be prepared to answer questions that lead to revelations about how you do business and how things could be better.

Strategic Thinking

Strategic thinking and strategic planning are essential skills for any great leadership coach. Your coach should be methodical in their thinking as they take systematic steps to help you identify and address pressing leadership and operational issues. 

Examine your company’s existing strategic plan with your coach’s help and locate gaps that aren’t currently addressed. Set goals and timeframes for accomplishing new things, and work with your leadership coach to determine which roadblocks might be standing in the way.

When your leadership coach is a strategic thinker, they’ll help you proactively anticipate issues before they can become catastrophes. Strategic thinking also goes hand in hand with adaptability, which is addressed in more detail below. 

Adaptability and Flexibility

A talented business strategy consultant uses an adaptive leadership style to adjust their techniques for each company they serve. When they encounter new information and fresh challenges, they make nimble course adjustments to stay on the path to success.

Some companies have problems that are so deeply ingrained that the company now has a dangerous or unhealthy culture. There could also be a period of extreme upheaval with a change in ownership, business focus, or the target market.

The leadership coach must be flexible enough to take these changes in stride. Everyone on your team needs extra support and guidance during tough times, so you need a coach you can trust to help you weather the storm successfully.

Leadership Coaching for Results

When you choose the right leadership coach, you’ll get the most out of your emerging leaders, your strategic plan, and your opportunities for long-term success. Support your staff by providing leadership skills and resources they need to build skills, confidence, and experience. 

Leadership Resources provides collaborative leadership coaching programs individualized to each company and participant. For genuine and lasting change, experts recommend leadership development programs as opposed to ordinary training programs. That’s why Leadership Resources works with business strategy consultants who help companies develop effective long-term leadership development plans. 

Do you already have an excellent leadership coach, or are you still searching for one? Reach out to Leadership Resources to be matched with a business strategy consultant who is the right fit for your business. We’re here to help you succeed!

Is your company experiencing a period of rapid business growth? Congratulations! You’re seeing the kind of success every business seeks.

Rapid growth is a double-edged sword. On one hand, it brings abundant opportunities your company may have never experienced before. You’ll have the chance to bring in greater revenue, find new customers, develop more positive PR, and build a strong reputation in your field.

On the other hand, rapid growth threatens to topple your company under the weight of success. During this time of intense growth, your resources are stretched to the maximum, and your employees may start to feel the stress. It’s all too easy to lose your grip on the growth and let it go spiraling out of control.

Rapid Business Growth Challenges

Managing your business and employees during times of exponential organizational growth can be difficult. Issues such as employee burnout can rupture previously dynamic teams and departments. According to a Workforce Institute study, 95% of HR professionals link employee burnout to direct losses in workforce productivity. Additionally, sustaining your company’s culture and values can be hard to manage during times of rapid growth.

The best way to minimize the growing pains from rapid growth is to engage with a business strategy consultant who’s faced similar challenges before. Your strategic business partner helps you maintain a self growth mindset as you address obstacles along the way and overcome them on the path to success.

Adapting to Growth With a Business Strategy Consultant

When business growth is your goal or already your daily reality, it’s essential to acknowledge that it’s an overwhelming experience. There’s no need to “grin and bear it” or pretend that everything’s perfectly under control when it isn’t.

A business strategy consultant provides a welcome reality check and helps you develop a self growth mindset as your company’s expansion continues. Your consultant supports adaptability because they can help you perform a cost-benefit analysis of each path forward at crucial decision points for your business.

To get the most out of your growth, work with your business coach to develop a strategic plan that serves as a roadmap to the future. Create short and long-term growth plans month by month and year by year. Stay flexible enough to adapt over time, but keep your eye on the clear horizon you’ve created by having a strategic plan in place.

Emotional Intelligence in the Workplace

One of the secrets to managing growth wisely is supporting your employees as they emerge into leadership roles. This involves numerous leadership-related activities like pursuing leadership development programs, developing succession plans, and ensuring you have a positive and productive company culture. 

Because fast business growth can make people feel overwhelmed and disconnected from the company, initiate employee engagement strategies. Connect with your employees through surveys and one-on-one meetings to ask what the company can do to support them. Most importantly, follow through by providing programs that encourage them to further their personal and professional goals.

When interpersonal tensions arise, explore options for emotional intelligence (EQ) training. You might be surprised to learn that EQ isn’t an inborn trait but an acquired skill that can be increased and refined through leadership development programs.

High emotional intelligence helps people adapt to change and stay motivated when the going gets tough in business. If your company’s leaders exhibit high-EQ leadership styles, they’re more likely to have the skills it takes to share feedback tactfully, resolve conflicts quickly, and move teams forward with confidence.

How to Embrace and Supercharge Your Growth

As your company grows, set growth-related goals to maintain the momentum. This is your best opportunity to ensure your growth remains manageable and profitable as time goes by.

Key tips for supercharging a company’s growth:

• Keep the focus on positive morale and teamwork, even when times are tough.
• Prioritize your highest-value activities to preserve resources.
• Maintain top notch customer service.
• Use systematic and thoughtful methods of strategic planning.
• Take a proactive approach by hiring a business strategy consultant.

The importance of strategic planning can’t be overemphasized at this critical turning point for your company. During a time of rapid growth, urgent details can clog up your time and cloud your vision. A strategic plan clarifies your company’s path forward, even when growth is keeping everyone extremely busy. 

Leadership Resources for Fast Business Growth

Fast growth doesn’t last forever, so take advantage of it while you can. To embrace meaningful and lasting change, experts recommend innovative leadership development programs as opposed to traditional training programs. Leadership Resources provides a comprehensive leadership development approach with guidance and support for each participant on an individual level.

At Leadership Resources, we help you take advantage of rapid business growth. We provide help with leadership development, interpersonal skills, emotional intelligence, strategic planning, and many other aspects of successful businesses. 

This is the key to developing a self-growth mindset and nourishing the innovative employee engagement strategies it takes to succeed. Connect with Leadership Resources today to learn more.

Behind every superstar team is a superstar coach. That’s why you need more than just a run-of-the-mill business consulting firm. You need a leadership coach.

A leadership coach is a business strategy consultant who helps companies think and behave strategically in pursuit of their goals. As your company grows and changes, your leadership coach cheers you on while using their expertise to help you develop clear, actionable steps toward continued success.

This means that the best business consultants have certain qualities and skills to fully support evolving businesses. Below are some of the most important characteristics to seek out in a business consulting firm.

The Skill of Strategic Thinking for Developing Leaders

Thinking strategically doesn’t come naturally to everyone. It takes education, organization, and practice to develop the habits of strategic thinking and strategic planning.

When it comes to hiring a business consultant, make sure they have a strong background in business strategy consulting, not just business consulting. Basic consulting usually deals only with providing general advice or offering simple informational training programs. 

On the other hand, strategic consulting tackles the deeper, tougher problems that strain interpersonal connections and limit business growth potential. A talented business strategy consultant can help you dig down to the roots of persistent problems and resolve them. Plus, they can help you make a strategic roadmap to a successful future.

A Positive and Proactive Point of View

The right leadership coach has a positive outlook that comes from experience, patience, and wisdom. They’ve already helped many other companies find greater success through their proven approaches and processes, so they know they can help your company too.

Proactivity is an important trait in a business strategy consultant. When someone is proactive, they take the initiative to anticipate and address issues as they arise. In this way, your consultant helps you predict problems and resolve them before they become catastrophes.

Personal Accountability

A great business consultant helps foster an atmosphere of professional and personal accountability. This means holding people responsible for their behavior in a productive way that motivates them to seek positive outcomes.

In some companies, an ingrained culture of fear prevents people from staying accountable. There’s a tendency to pass the buck and say “Not me!” when problems arise. In this environment, it takes a skilled business coach to help identify and address accountability issues. 

Flexibility and Adaptability

This leads to two other qualities of a business coach that are especially important: flexibility and adaptability. Every business is unique and faces challenges specific to its culture, location, clientele, industry, and more.

The ideal business consulting firm is flexible and adaptable enough to adjust their process to your company for the perfect fit. When you come to them with a new challenge or conflict, they must be open to understanding the issue and seeking innovative solutions.

Interpersonal Communication Skills

Outstanding communication skills are vital for a business strategy consultant. When companies are growing and changing, interpersonal communication happens constantly at lightning speed. 

Your company needs a consultant who communicates clearly and quickly, keeping up with the pace of your needs. Before hiring a new consultant, ask how they plan to communicate with your team and ensure their communication channels and frequency will match your needs.

Wide Variety of Business Consulting Services and Leadership Development Programs

The right business strategy consultant should help reshape your business into a more efficient and productive place. With your leadership coach’s help, your organization should be able to more consistently accomplish its goals. 

Does your business consulting firm offer all of the following services?

• Developing new business plans
• Updating existing strategic plans to be more effective
• Assisting with day-to-day decision-making
• Surviving difficult transitions in business/leadership
• Creating a healthier organizational culture
• Seeking better profitability and financial stability
• Implementing new programs for team-building and morale
• Identifying future leaders and succession planning
• Mapping out the future of the company

Leadership Development Potential

When your business is growing and expanding into new frontiers, your business consulting firm must be able to adapt to these changes and continue helping you succeed. One of the best ways to manage growth is to engage with a leadership development program.

Leadership Resources’ Accelerate Leadership Program (ALP) provides a way to address your company’s business initiatives reliably and consistently, day after day. This highly individualized approach uses one-on-one coaching, leadership training classes, assessments, accountability software, leadership tools, and person-to-person interactions to build leadership skills.

Each participant in the ALP program builds the essential skills it takes to motivate people and make progress toward company goals. With the help of a leadership coach, each member of the team experiences a strong and supportive program that supports the learning process.

Don’t just train your leaders. Develop them. Experts say it’s most effective to implement a robust leadership development program that involves developing leaders through coaching and support, not just training. 

Our Business Consulting Firm Helps You Succeed

There are plenty of business consultants who provide general advice that could apply to any business in the world. But your company deserves next-level leadership coaching and business planning from the business strategy consultants at Leadership Resources.

We specialize in providing customized strategies to address leadership development, strategic planning, and business coaching for the greatest possible success. Request a business consultation today to start getting the most out of your people and your company.

Starting a new leadership development program is an exciting time for an organization. Your team is on the cusp of discovering new leaders within your ranks, seizing new business opportunities, and planning for a successful future for many decades to come.

Why Preparing for Your Leadership Development Training Program is Important

It’s vital for your team to be well prepared in the right frame of mind when beginning a leadership development training program. According to the ICF’s Global Coaching Client Study, 86% of companies were able to calculate their ROI after implementing leadership development training. The return on investment for these companies ranged from 10 to 49 times, with the median being 700%. This means that your investment in a leadership training program was worth seven times what you spent on it. Investing in leadership development training is a great way to attract and retain the best talent and drive better performance.

Of course, it’s also a time of stress and apprehension for many of your employees. A new leadership training program can bring uncertainty about what’s ahead or even cause people to worry about losing their jobs.

Let’s look at three things your company can do to prepare for leadership team development and to get the most out of the process. Here’s how to set the stage for success.

Show Support at All Levels

An important first step is to demonstrate clear support for your new leadership coaching program from the very top of the organization. Through company communications and meetings, make it obvious that the program has the full backing of your company’s top dogs, including the CEO, C-suite executives, board members, directors, and all levels of managers.

This starts your leadership development program with a boost of positivity and shows everyone that ongoing education and skill-building are part of your organizational culture. When it’s time to launch the program, employees will feel more mentally prepared because their bosses have already shown so much support for it.

Help your employees picture the success of the company with their upcoming leadership training program in place. Encourage them to picture their individual role in the future of the company using their newfound knowledge and talent.

Stay Flexible and Keep an Open Mind

Many people view change with suspicion. Your entire company may have a longstanding habit of putting up resistance to change, particularly if previous leaders have instilled negative feelings like fear, anxiety, and defensiveness.

Before your new leadership development program begins, welcome your employees to open up about their anxieties and fears about the process. Reassure them that it’s part of human nature to be concerned about the future, but help them understand that change doesn’t have to be a negative experience.

Focus on positive outcomes like greater success, better morale, and less stress in the future. Encourage them to rely on their new leadership coach to help them address their worries about the process and its potential results.

Create a Definition of Success

As the old saying goes, “You can’t hit a target you can’t see.” It’s important to clarify your company’s target goals and establish exactly what you’re trying to accomplish.

What are your desired outcomes for this process? What does success look like? How will you know when you reach it? How will you acknowledge and praise your hardworking employees?

Common goals for leadership training programs include:

• Developing or refining leadership soft skills
• Creating efficient and effective teams
• Expanding communication skills and improving collaboration
• Enhancing emotional intelligence
• Building a growth mindset
• Inspiring and creating momentum for greater success

As the leadership development program begins, you can refine and clarify your end goals with the help of your leadership coach. This is an essential part of what’s known as “leadership coaching for results,” which involves a Success Chain^TM of stacking wins on top of wins to achieve desired outcomes.

The Next Step: Join the Accelerate Leadership Program

When your company is ready to initiate leadership team development, Leadership Resources is here to help. Our Accelerate Leadership Program (ALP) helps participants expand their leadership knowledge, talent, and confidence. 

Each participant in the ALP program builds the essential skills it takes to motivate people and make progress toward company goals. With the help of a leadership coach, each member of the team experiences an individualized program that supports the learning process.

Don’t just train them! Develop your leaders. Experts say it’s most effective to implement a robust leadership development program that involves coaching and support, not just training. 

Leadership Resources’ leadership development process goes far beyond basic leadership training courses. We incorporate a proven guided process, leadership coaching, customized coursework, peer connections, learning software, and more. ALP keeps everyone engaged as they work together to pursue success!