Leadership Development Tools
14/11/08 Filed in: 7 Ideas Coach
Leadership ability is gained primarily by experience. In fact, it is hard to get it any other way. But experience alone does not guarantee development, i.e., new learning that can be applied to future situations. For learning or development to occur, one must reflect on experience in a way that allows one to both to make changes as needed and to reinforce what is working well.
Below are a seven tools that, if used well, can help you both assess and develop your leadership competency while gaining the experience in leading your venture to success.
- 360° Evaluations – These products systematically collect leadership performance information from everyone around you. In many organizations this consists of people you report to, people who report to you, colleagues on the same level with you; and may also include customers, vendors, funders, or partners. Typically, the information is collected in survey form, although interviews can also be used. There are several 360° products available - a new one especially designed for leadership development is the Tilt 360. If done right, 360° evaluations provide outstanding baseline data about perceived strengths and weaknesses. They should be used carefully and professionally however, with attention to ensuring there is organizational readiness to make 360° evaluations useful rather than destructive or a waste of time.
- Instruments and Assessments – Most people are familiar with these typically multiple choice questionnaires. Some of the most popular are the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), DISC, FIRO-B, and Change Style Indicator; although there are hundreds for all kinds of purposes. These can be very useful if used appropriately, but misleading to disastrous if poorly applied.
- Coaching – A coach engages an individual or a team in a process that focuses efforts to reach objectives. Once considered mostly for ‘remedial’ issues with otherwise high-talent individuals, coaches are now generally accepted as important resources for leaders to stay on top of their game. If star athletes all have coaches, why not star leaders?
- Mentoring – While mentoring may seem similar to coaching, it is distinctly different. A mentor is generally someone in the same field, industry, or company is a further along in their career and helps you along the way by sharing experience, know-how, maybe even providing important contacts or references.
- Executive Peer Groups – These provide a structure for executives or business owners from non-competing industries to form long-term advisory relationships. Vistage (formerly TEC) is probably the most well known, but there are others, including groups sponsored by many Chambers of Commerce. A similar variation particularly used by professionals includes mastermind groups, where peers get together to share knowledge, know-how, and provide mutual accountability to help each other succeed.
- Leadership Training and Programs – There is a wide variety of specific training and development opportunities that can genuinely help develop leadership skills, but choose carefully to avoid wasting your time and money. For general leadership development you can find any number of comprehensive leadership programs that last from a couple of days to several weeks or more. These programs are provided by independent leadership consultants, organizations such as the Center for Creative Leadership, and many colleges and universities; often through their MBA schools. Most include a combination of assessments (360° evaluations and/or other instruments), experiential learning or simulations, standard classroom learning with discussion and case studies, and sometimes coaching. Larger organizations often sponsor their own, in-house leadership development programs. A question to explore is the benefit trade-off about attending an outside program where you learn from other companies, verses designing an in-house program that focuses on shared learning among people in the same organization.
- Self-Directed Learning – Independent study is a cornerstone tool. One of my favorite sources for self-directed learning are Bio-Optical Organized Knowledge devices, or BOOKS. There’s links about these amazing tools, as well as lots of short articles and podcasts, of course, on the internet. The Think Leadership Ideas blog has been created as a growing library of leadership insight.
See Consulting Services for information about executive coaching and leadership development.
blog comments powered by Disqus
