Investing in leadership development can positively impact your bottom line. In today’s workforce, many business leaders around the globe are seeking ways to implement well-defined leadership strategies to boost performance.
As a leader, it is your task and duty to help the team members identify their strengths and uniqueness and doing this requires choosing the right leadership style . To effectively play your role of influencing, engaging and encouraging people to take action towards a common goal voluntarily. There is a need to understand how to implement workable strategies.
However, due to development and the ever-evolving business space, even the most thought-out strategies fail. Shortfalls in leadership strategies are predominant in today’s unprecedented and complex world as a result of mismatched capabilities, poor asset configurations, and inadequate execution. In other words, we can trace these failures to how organisations develop their leaders.
Hence, to stay ahead, organisations have to avoid some of these pitfalls by exploring the appropriate methods to integrate effective leadership strategies that can improve team action and performance and better prepare the workforce for unforeseen changes.
Do you have the fundamental principles for developing successful leadership strategies?
What do you need to know before building a leadership strategy?
In this article, we share foolproof tips for developing a successful leadership strategy and steps to sidestepping the risks associated with inadequate leadership strategy.
Leadership and Leadership Strategy
Leadership is the starting point of strategy; it is intricately integrated into strategy development. Many leaders know that well-defined leadership strategies are essential but fail to assess their leadership gap and strategies before introducing new ones. However, the breakthrough or success of any formulated plan is usually determined by the leader, and the burden on leadership continues to grow along novel strategic dimensions and new initiatives.
A leadership strategy is a detailed plan that aligns investments in leadership development with the business’ process, objectives, and aspirations. It defines the types, numbers, skills, behaviours and collective leadership required to actualise organisational goals and needs.
The leadership strategy also highlights other issues you need to consider, such as whether the current personnel management procedures support the leadership culture you want to promote.
A well-crafted leadership strategy may maximize your organization’s capability for the future, enable growth, enhance value, accelerate strategy effectiveness, and maximize personnel investment. You can create a custom leadership strategy tailored to your organisation’s unique challenges and business priorities through a partnership between Workforce Group’s dedicated team of leadership programme experts and your senior-level management team.
How to Create a Successful Leadership Strategy
Setting a comprehensive leadership strategy for any organization will require a thorough grasp of leadership gaps and skills because these plans can only be realized if they are led from within. Here are five proven tips to help you develop a successful leadership strategy:
1. Understand your key drivers and organisational needs
Great companies set their goals and strategies based on understanding. In designing your leadership strategy, it is imperative that you accurately grasp the overarching business goals. This is achievable by liaising with critical decision-makers. This will help you understand their perspectives and align your leadership strategy accordingly.
Ensure you get buy-in from organisational leadership drivers and agree to the leadership strategy. You can examine each business strategy, then pose some fundamental questions that will guide the formulation of your leadership strategy, such as:
What important decisions are you making about the organisation’s positioning? Is this skill necessary? What are the bare minimums? Is success guaranteed?
2. Identify skill gaps and future needs
To develop any leadership strategy, you must pinpoint what skills are in short supply in your company and the possible areas you need to develop further to strengthen your team and organisation now and in the future. You must be able to align employees’ plans and assess their strengths and areas improvement to become more strategic.
3. Begin with who's best suited for future leadership
Once you clearly understand the knowledge gaps, you can consider which individuals and managers you should develop to fill the existing voids.
To get started, assess team members already in leadership roles -and young workers who have potential – about their career goals and skill sets. You will then be able to comprehend the areas of interest and potential growth for both groups and also decide what instruction and practical experience they’ll require.
4. Invest in continuous learning
If creating effective leadership strategies is a top priority, then leaders must be dedicated to lifelong learning, skill application in the real world, and networking both internally and beyond. The most sustainable leadership development strategy will focus on creating a culture of continual improvement. With self-directed learning and the knowledge that their goals and training should align with the company’s, this encourages your employees to take the initiative.
Also, as leaders, knowledge and experience sharing is imperative and an excellent approach to developing the team’s leadership skills. Enhance learning through constant dialogue, continual leadership involvement, and systemic integration of leadership skills into the culture and core procedures. Also, you must walk the talk by ensuring that you are consistently undergoing some form of training to strengthen your skills and capabilities.
5. Design an evaluation plan
It is impossible to identify the implications of the leadership strategy or its proven impact without an evaluation plan. As a result, developing an evaluation plan before instituting the initiative is excellent. Developing the most successful strategy also entails ensuring an alignment with executives on how you will measure success; it involves creating assessments and surveys to analyse performance outcomes.
What Can We Do for You?
We help you assess and address the strategic growth challenges of today so you can focus on enhancing your organisation’s value. For over 18 years, through our partnership and well-designed solutions and leadership programmes, Workforce Group has helped organisations create leadership training that aligns and supports their business strategy.
You can partner with Workforce Group’s world-class leadership experts to connect your leadership strategy and business results by taking advantage of our unchallenged leadership development initiatives.
If you need further clarifications or require the help of our senior and experienced consultants please reach out to us at hello@workforcegroup.com.
Olasunkanmi Adenuga
Director, Workforce Learning