What are your best leadership development strategies?

I had the privilege of benefiting from leadership development early in my career. 360 degree reviews may sound daunting at first, but it can reveal extremely valuable feedback. You rate yourself and so do others—leaders, peers, direct reports. This works well if you have thick skin and appreciate candor. There are also other tools like StrengthsFinder and Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Building self-awareness can help you understand the best way to work with others. A confidence boost never hurts either!

Platforms like YouTube, podcasts, and meet-up groups offer valuable resources to further enhance leadership skills. YouTube can provide insightful talks, webinars, and tutorials on management, strategic planning, and effective communication. Podcasts offer on-the-go learning, featuring interviews with experienced leaders, discussing best practices, and sharing real-world challenges and solutions. Meet-up groups enable networking with peers, fostering collaboration and knowledge sharing.

Learning on the job is THE best development hack (strategy). Learning through the ‘doing’ will not only save you time, it is how we integrate theory and action. Here is a brief outline of one approach my coaching clients have had successfully used ti get result rapidly: 1. Outline a specific practice you are trying out that is aligned to your developmental goals. The practice can be a repeated through out the day/week/month. How ever long you choose. 2. Create dedicated time and calendar space for reflection - this is how you integrate your learning. Have specific reflection questions to ask yourself. 3. Journal your learning so that you can see your progress over time. Long-hand written form helps your brain process and remember.

In my experience failure is a great teacher, it really shows where exactly you have gone wrong when you evaluate. Keep an wide open mind do not hesitate keep trying with various approaches. You can get tips online from various platforms so that you can achieve what looking for.

This is where the power of coaching shines through. Role playing with a trusted coach or advisor can help you prepare and think through difficult conversations as well as launching new initiatives. It’s best to work through several scenarios that are positive, negative, and indifferent. This will help you find the right strategy to overcome and reinforce any comments that don’t align with your message or strategy. Journaling can help with this as well. Keep notes on your teams engagement and demeanor each week and reread your notes in order every week to find discrepancies or positive and negative trends that need to be addressed from your team, yourself, other outside influences.

Whether you are being intentional about it or not, you DO lead by example. Let your team see you be in continuous development mode. Let them see you attending trainings, reading development books, using your LMS system, etc.. Share the learnings you experience. I use the mantra "There is never to much I can have you do". This is not about overloading them with work. It is about having a belief in them that they are more capable then they think they are. We are our own greatest limiter. Put then in uncomfortable situations, give them important assignments, and include them in higher level meetings. This will stretch them and true growth occurs outside of our comfort zone.

Meeting regularly with a small group of interested potential leaders to focus on targeted professional learning and share their goals and progress, so they learn from each other has proven useful. This is accompanied by 1:1 coaching to offer individual, focused reflection.

A key strategy in leadership development is to make learning a personal daily habit. Consistent is more important than quantity, because it is about helping ourselves as leaders to lead each day as a learner first. Even 10 minutes daily will help us to show up as leaders who are in learning mode, ready to listen and grow through the day. Even a small amount of personal focused input and reflection daily can reap significant rewards.

One strategy would be to embrace challenges. Don't shy away from complex tasks or challenging projects. Embracing challenges fosters resilience and enhances problem-solving skills. Remember, effective leadership development is a continuous process that requires dedication, self-awareness, and a willingness to learn and adapt.

Borrowing from Covey, begin with the end in mind and always keep sight of it. What kind of culture do you want? What is it that you expect that culture to produce? What kind of leaders are needed? Hire and promote with those ends in mind. Then, relentlessly develop to strengthen and improve them. Far more important than any particular leadership model is the idea that learning and development focus on the type of leaders your desired culture will require.