Are Leadership Training Courses The Answer?
When a leader is not performing or meeting desired expectations, one of the first things that comes to mind is that the problem is a training issue. Then, an exhaustive search gets underway of all the leadership training courses that are out there to see if one is a good fit for time, budget, and the suspected needs of the person. Before you go through the effort of checking out leadership training courses, there may be some other things you want to look at first.
Poor performance can’t be blamed all the time on lack of training. In fact most poor performance often has to do with something else other than training. The first thing you want to look at when you have a leader who is underperforming is to first make sure that the person understands what is expected of them. This means the person should have a clear set of measurable objectives and understands each objective.
Next the person needs to have the resources to execute on the objectives. If the person does not have the resources needed to do the job, performance will not meet expectations. Looking at the resources also means looking at any obstacles that you need to remove that may be keeping the person from performing well. In this age of doing more with less, it is vitally important that the job can get done with the “less” that is available.
Obstacles that stand in the way can be external or internal. The external obstacles are more obvious once you really start to look for them. The internal obstacles though are more difficult to ascertain. Internal obstacles have to do with the person. For example, an internal obstacle could be fear of making a mistake or lack of self confidence. These internal obstacles can make you think there is training issue when there really is a development issue.
Open communication is the best way to ensure a leader who is underperforming gets what they need to turn things around. It could be a training issue and it might not be. There is a training issue only if the person does not have the skill set to meet the objectives. The whole point of looking at every aspect is to get to what really is the cause of the poor performance and address it. Don’t just assume the need to go to some leadership training courses.
If your leaders do need leadership development training, I invite you to check out Leadership Development Essentials.
Go to: Leadership Development Essentials to see how this program can increase the effectiveness of your leadership team.
