September, 2007

Proactive Leadership Training

Managers need to learn the ropes from the pros.

By Tom Fife

Do you remember your first day in a supervisory or management position? How prepared were you to do the job? Was your toolbox stocked with management essentials, or crammed full of job knowledge alone?

I’m going to guess that you can remember many times when you had to face challenges for which you had little or no training. Did you ever ask yourself if you were set up for failure or success?

Both how we decide who we will promote and how well we prepare them for advancement are crucial to a company’s success and our team members’ well-being. The reality is that being the greatest player is no guarantee of becoming a great coach.

We need to get new supervisors and managers up to speed on the new skills they will need without resorting to the same trial and error method (by making mistakes) that costs us valuable time and people.

I believe proactive leadership training is the best choice to replace “OJT” (on-the-job) training. It builds confidence instead of causing discomfort. It allows your best people to learn the skills they need in their own way, rather than forcing them to learn those skills in front of their team, which can make them feel inept and stressed.

What are essential leadership skills? Let’s identify a few.

It’s most often the soft skills we need to develop first, and the ability to communicate well tops the list. Communication is how we share ideas and connect with each other. A new leader’s communication competence will “doom or zoom” them, depending on their level of expertise:

•  Have your new leaders been taught how to conduct a meeting, when to have one, and who should be present?

•  Are your new leaders going to hire new employees? If so, it’s imperative that they possess a good

understanding of the interviewing process for potential new team members.

•  Will your new manager now be expected to review employees, rather than just to receive his or her own

review? Sitting on the other side of the desk during this process is as different as night and day.

Workforce involvement is often the difference between a successful transition into leadership and one that brings undue friction and counter-productive behavior. Learning how to involve teammates before a decision is made will gain the maximum “buy in” by those employees, who will, in the end, carry out those ideas.

Learning to cultivate and reward successful behavior is an essential skill that any manager should know. Along with proper praising and reprimands, one of the most difficult tasks a newly promoted manager will have to become comfortable with is how to properly document all sorts of important information. Documentation is the trail we leave to assure we will have a legal basis if we need to make tough decisions in the future.

How will our new leaders know how to deal with conflict? Often the new leader will have to be judge and jury for numerous natural conflicts that occur in the workplace.

A new leader should be aware of all education and training opportunities that they can use and share with others.

Leaders need to understand a company’s financial situation and how the bottom line is affected. Can they see “the big picture?” How much financial information should they share? How, why, and with whom should they share it?

My goal with the above suggestions is simple. I want you to think twice about how you prepare your bench to become your future leaders. Leaders who’ve had their job for years sometimes take for granted how many skills and how much knowledge they have accumulated over that time. With a proactive approach to leadership training, we can avoid the costs of lost time, money, or personnel turnover.

And remember: It’s our job to set our people up for success—not failure.

If I can help, just holler.