Strong leadership is necessary for ensuring a company’s ongoing success. Of course, even the best leaders have room for improvement. In any venture, the only way to truly improve, however, is to keep track of your progress and adjust accordingly. Whether you’re trying to cultivate better leaders in your organization or improve your own leadership abilities, here’s how to measure developmental leadership progress.How to Measure Development Progress
How to Measure Development Progress
Identify and Track Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
You can’t measure leadership progression without knowing what to measure in the first place. This is where key performance indicators (KPIs) come into play. As their name suggests, KPIs are specific metrics that can be quantified in some way to track progress. In regards to employee management, for instance, KPIs might include things like revenue earned per hour, absenteeism rate, net promoter score (NPS), etc. To measure development leadership progress, KPIs should focus on factors like communication, employee satisfaction, team retention, and so on. If you’re attempting to track your own leadership progress, you might come up with more personalized KPIs. Equally as important as coming up with these KPIs is knowing how to review performance management data — if you can’t quantify or analyze performance over time, you’ll struggle to realize progress in yourself and others.
Set Specific Goals
Another way to measure personal and organizational leadership development is to set clear-cut, short-term goals. Goals are similar to KPIs in that they reveal a target to aim for, but they’re only aimed for one time (i.e., clearing a finish line) as opposed to over and over again (i.e., clicking a stopwatch to track how long it takes each time). Setting and overcoming well-defined goals allows you to track leadership progress in a more tangible way — the only way to achieve certain goals is to level up your leadership skills, after all. Plus, whether or not a particular goal is met, there’s always a lesson to learn that can further fuel leadership growth.
Conduct Surveys Periodically
Even subjective feedback can be translated into quantitative data that can be used to track leadership progress. Organizational surveys can be useful tools in this regard, giving employees at all levels the opportunity to reflect on their own place in the company, their feelings toward policies and leaders, and more. Not only do these surveys help adjust and enhance company culture — they also reveal areas of improvement for leaders on both the individual and group levels. It’s important to disseminate these surveys on a routine basis and keep them somewhat consistent (i.e., similar questions and rubrics) to get a clearer picture of development leadership progress, employee satisfaction, and more.
Use Modern Tools
If the methods mentioned above seem difficult to manage, don’t fret — modern programs like the Accelerate leadership development program by Leadership Resources remove much of the guesswork and streamline this measurement process with various resources. The Accelerate software allows you to watch leadership development in action, tracking various KPIs so you can see the long-term impact on your organization. This program also allows leaders to develop together, enabling participants to learn from one another and establish greater accountability. Every leader in the program also benefits from monthly one-on-one coaching with leadership professionals who know exactly what to look for when measuring and maintaining progress.
Accountability Is the Key to Measuring and Furthering Leadership Growth. At Leadership Resources, our purpose is to make the impossible possible through people. We aim to do so by helping individuals develop patterns of success that will decrease stress levels and maximize productivity. Contact us here to learn more about what we do and how it can help your business succeed and grow at times like these when you need it most.
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A common stereotype of corporate culture from years gone by is that of an unhealthy hierarchy where employees do the most work for the least pay and upper management sits in their corner office, with their feet up, drinking Scotch. While this is uncommon, examples of this structure can certainly be found in history, but in reality, companies would have a hard time operating this way for long. Such actions by a business owner or executive
If a business is to thrive, employee and management development must be viewed as an
Keeping the Company Strong
The negative outlook described above leads one to believe that business owners benefit when their underlings are suppressed. This couldn’t be further from the truth. A strong company culture relies on cooperation, transparency, and mobility. Employees must always have a direct line of communication to management and vice versa. Every staff member should feel encouraged to make contributions and suggestions without fear of judgment. If not, problems get left unchecked, teamwork suffers, productivity falls, brand reputation takes hit after hit, and the whole thing eventually collapses.
Truly investing in leadership training provides an antidote to this potential disaster by decreasing turnover and increasing opportunity. Employees will feel empowered to learn new things, open new doors, and take on new responsibilities. Some staff members may fall short, but others will thrive in this environment and make their way to new positions within the company, strengthening it from the inside. This mobility shouldn’t threaten upper management. The more people with valuable skills, the better. While continued development might lead to some internal restructuring, it’s bound to benefit the business.
Staying Ahead of the Competition
Ultimately, every business wants to have a leg up on its direct competition. Devising a leadership development program offers the best way to do so.
Companies everywhere are becoming more selective about who they hire. Every business wants to employ the best people with the most experience, as this will immediately give it an edge in the market. One of the most powerful ways for a company to captivate ideal new hires is by making it clear that it offers such leadership development courses. This will bring in people who already hunger to learn more and to grow as professionals. This way, a business will get the most out of its people and the most out of its training regiment.
To truly maintain a competitive edge, a company must invest in the leadership skills of all its staff members. The more people learn and grow within the company, the more ideas will flourish. New ideas lead to product innovation, creative marketing tactics, bold partnerships, and more.
At Leadership Resources, our purpose is making the impossible possible through people. We aim to do so by helping individuals develop patterns of success that will decrease stress levels and maximize productivity. Contact us here to learn more about what we do and how it can help your business succeed and grow.
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