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How to Engage Senior Leaders in Leadership Development

Leadership development refers to the organization’s strategic planning to instill and improve the skills of capable employees in order to prepare them for leadership and management roles as they become available within the organization. Such programs provide employees with the skills and attributes they need to become effective leaders and drive the organization toward productive results.

Why Engage Senior Leaders in Leadership Development?

It increases employee engagement, improves the company’s ability to fill gaps in the talent pipeline, and lowers turnover costs. Which is why it is essential to engage senior leaders in leadership development. As a result, leadership development programs for capable candidates should be held by those who already have expertise in their specific domain. Hence, senior executives need to be engaged readily in such initiatives in order to gather from their experiences about both the organization and their field of expertise.

Ways to involve senior leaders in leadership training

If you are having trouble or do not know where to begin with the process of involving senior leaders in leadership development, here are a few pointers to help you:

1. Identifying qualified individuals

To begin the process of involving senior leaders in leadership development, it is critical to first determine who is qualified to gain expertise and who is qualified to provide it. Since leadership development refers to training employees to become leaders for the organization, it is preferable to look for the most experienced people in a specific domain within the same organization to share their knowledge. It is preferable to select senior executives from within the organization because they will be able to train candidates in accordance with the company’s norms and will be better able to train candidates about common workplace challenges.

Read: Best Ways to Train Your Employees

2. Making a request

Once you have identified the right person to lead the leadership development initiatives, the next step is to approach them and ask them to share their knowledge. Your request could include a brief discussion about why leadership development is important not only for producing well-trained individuals, but also for the future of the organization, and how their experience will impact the capable employees. A formal request will make them see it as an opportunity while also making them feel valued, causing them to participate in the initiative.

3. Assist them in understanding their significance

Senior leaders must understand the significance of their impact and experience on candidates in order to fully engage in the process of leadership development. As a result, it is critical for employees to demonstrate how their advice or tips from their expertise assist candidates in dealing with situations effectively. It is critical for employees to make them understand how valuable it is for them to share their experiences of challenges encountered in a specific role. This will not only help candidates to take over the role confidently but also assist them in producing effective results.

4. Encouraging them to share their insights

Leadership development, in and of itself, refers to the concept of teaching employees. It is not necessary to launch a full-fledged program to accomplish this. You can learn a lot from senior executives by observing how they dealt with a specific challenge, how they improved their performance, and what their perspective is on the organization and their specific domain. Learning from the experiences of someone who already has expertise in a field you are new with teaches you a lot about the working process and industrial culture.

5. Take help from the human resources team

HR staffers can coach, counsel, and advise line managers with little or no experience in talent development in organizations with particularly strong HR functions. Human resources are critical for leadership development efforts. You can approach them for data collection for decision-making purposes, ensuring that senior leaders are following through with their responsibilities.

Visit: Global HR Leaders Program (HRLP)

GLOBAL HR LEADERS PROGRAM | NUS National University of Singapore

6. Allow them to own their field of expertise

Rather than asking leaders to share their experiences in general, it is preferable to approach one from each domain who has amassed impressive expertise in the subject. This not only allows you to delve deeper into the concepts of each domain, but also makes the senior executives feel at ease, confident, and interested throughout the process. Every individual leader will have a different perspective on the workplace to offer, which is also important to listen to and learn from, but what leadership development is all about is drawing on their expertise in a specific field.

Summary

Initiating leadership development is critical and deserved by employees who are capable of taking on a leadership role in the near future. Mentoring them well is not only important but also required. As a result, it is critical for senior leaders to readily participate in such initiatives in order to fully impart whatever they have learned over the course of their careers, which aspiring candidates should be aware of. Making senior executives participate in leadership development may appear to be a difficult task, but these tips will undoubtedly assist you in effectively engaging senior leaders in leadership development.

Read: Job Search Challenges That Senior Executives Face

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