Do you have business consulting sessions coming up? Congratulations! You’re on the way to honing your company’s strategy and pursuing maximum success.
This is the perfect chance to leverage the experience of your leadership coach and squeeze every bit of benefit from your newfound leadership development experience. Read on to learn how to get the most out of your relationship with a business strategy consultant.
Why Leadership Development Consulting Is Important
Independent research from a wide variety of expert organizations regularly reveals a consistent conclusion: leadership development is one of the biggest issues facing organizations today. Via a survey from Deloitte, 80% of organizations say leadership is a top priority, but just half say their leaders are actually meeting expectations. For organizations, investing in leadership development helps boost the bottom line and attract good people. The right training can achieve the following:
- Help a leader strategize effectively and manage change.
- Attract and retain top talent
- Improve overall financial performance
- Ensure organizational consistency with succession planning
- Increase probability of strategy execution
Conversely, ineffective leadership is the wrecking ball that a business can encounter. Not only does it result in disengagement, but it also leads to the loss of top talent. Not only that, but bad leadership can also hurt a company’s revenue. For these reasons, leadership development is one of the most important investments for an organization.
Create a Short-Term and Long-Term Plan
When it comes to building a business strategy, the best results arise from careful planning. Look at the next 3 to 12 months, then look even further into the next 1 to 5 years. What are your biggest goals? Your biggest challenges?
Talk to your leadership coach to discuss how your business will adapt to a changing marketplace. Create a plan for dealing with things like an unexpected competitor that enters your area or a sudden loss of a key leader in the company.
Be Clear and Specific About Your Goals
Clarity counts when it comes to working with a business consultant. There’s very little benefit to receiving general advice or being vague about what you want to accomplish in your sessions.
Many business consultants provide wide-ranging, generalized advice that could apply to any business. When it’s time for your coaching sessions, it’s perfectly acceptable to press your coach for more specific insights that will help your particular company.
Stay open-minded and be willing to put work into the process. Be prepared to ask questions, but also be ready to receive questions in return from your leadership development consultant to look deeper into your policies and processes. This should be a give-and-take in the name of achieving greater success.
Examine and Revise Existing Business Strategies
Work with your leadership coach to take a look at your company’s existing business plan, and give extra attention to gaps in the plan where your goals aren’t being met. What could you be doing differently to make more progress?
Sometimes, it’s necessary to scrap the existing plan and develop a new plan from the ground up. This is particularly true in businesses with dangerously unhealthy cultures or those that are experiencing massive shifts in ownership, focus, or target market.
Explore New Ways to Support Your Emerging Leaders
How well does your company identify and nourish its developing leaders? Now is the ideal time to get better at supporting positive leadership behaviors with the help of your business coach.
Full leadership support goes far beyond sending an employee to a training program. It involves providing leadership development opportunities, connecting them with their peers, nourishing their spirit, and cheering them on as they make progress.
It’s also important to help your newest leaders see a clear picture of the future where they play a vital role in your organization. Create a succession plan that includes leaders at various levels and map out a more profitable and productive future for your company.
Finding the Right Leadership Development Program
To get the most out of every business strategy consultant relationship, provide your emerging leaders with the leadership skills and resources they need to grow. Your company needs a leadership coach with the experience and expertise to provide robust guidance and support.
For meaningful, lasting change, experts recommend leadership development programs as opposed to simple training programs. At Leadership Resources, we help companies turn promising achievers into high-performing leaders with effective leadership development plans. Whenever you need us, we’re here to help you succeed.
