Leadership development can be categorized into two including individual training and group training. These days, more and more companies seek the help of firms that offer this kind of training because many studies prove the effectiveness of leadership development training in the overall success of the company.
People who are conducting leadership development training would agree that traditional means of enhancing the skills of leaders may not ensure 100 percent success rate. This is because learning patterns have changed drastically over the previous years.
In fact, statistics show that many companies to seek leadership development training opt for the non-conventional ways of developing leadership skills among its employees. This is because they also believe that people now learn by relating things to their personal experiences.
Getting personal
The key to effective leadership development training these days is the human aspect. Before, training are usually based on theories and taught by rigid people in formal seminars. But now, many leadership development trainings focus on a more laid back approach which is both personal and less formal.
The most usual setting of leadership development trainings nowadays is through physical activities such as team building sports. Others resort to more quiet options like executive retreats to allow the leaders get fresh air and clear their minds off stress.
In seminars that go along with leadership development trainings, one concept is always included before experts believe that this single trait is the foundation to becoming an effective leader—being motivated, that is.
Experts say that though motivation, leaders would be able to make decisions that would affect his or her life and career in the future. In most leadership development trainings, motivating the participants is usually one of the major highlights because this is the key to the success of the activity.
The trainors focus on motivating leaders because they believe that this is the first step for them to develop a positive outlook in life. This is very important because if one keeps an open and positive outlook towards life in general, he or she will be able to overcome the everyday struggle that would come along the way. Also, if the leader has a positive outlook in life, he or she will be able to turn failures into successes by seizing each opportunity that knock on the door.
Experts say that for one to develop a positive outlook in life, he or she must be able to keep a positive attitude first. Once positive attitude is set, it is easier to look things in an orderly way. For one to develop positive attitude, he or she must undergo self-reassessment to find out what are his or her strengths as well as the weaknesses. Once all of these have been identified, it will be easier to turn the bad ones into good ones and there would also be greater chances of making the positive ones better.
Although this might look simple during leadership development trainings, many participants are still having difficulties in achieving this because of so many factors such as personality, upbringing, and ways of managing stress as well as failure.
As in all things, the future promises an array of new ways and new understanding in the practice of leadership and leadership development. These are critical role-changing contexts which will play an important part in leadership development.
Several trends will assume major roles in the days to come, changing perspectives and changing premises of old assumptions and general thinking.
Leadership competencies
First, leadership competencies (requirements) will still matter. However, they will change as the competitive environment changes.
A study indicates five critical forces will shape leadership in the future: 1) global competition, 2) information technology, 3) the need for rapid and flexible groups, 4) teams, and 5) differing employee needs.
Globalization
Future leaders will have to be familiar and fluid in doing business on a global basis. Globalization, in effect, will require leaders to deal with more and more complex groups outside the realm of their organizations.
There will be more components involving international markets, global economic trends, and outside regions like the Asia Pacific rim, the Southern Hemisphere, etc. There will be an extensive use of the internet in the marketing of products and services.
Technology
The revolution in technology has drastically altered organizational life. It has changed the ways information and knowledge are obtained and spread.
One of the most important changes is in the way people communicate. This had produced some deep implications in terms of effective leadership. In the future, technology will have a vast participation in leadership development.
Leaders will have to be more knowledgeable with technology and its uses. As a matter of fact, technological savvy is slated to become an integral factor in leadership.
Character and integrity
The 90s had produced some of the most blatant corporate arrogance among executives of certain huge corporations. (Think Enron and WorldCom.)
This had triggered and accelerated sentiments among governing board members of companies that character and values shall be made more prominent in the leadership business.
There is a trend among the new crop of CEOs to be self-effacing and modest. (This is in direct contrast to the self-promoting styles of well-known business leaders before them who did not have enduring positive impacts on their companies after they exited.)
Return on investment
The strongest pressure of leadership practitioners in the future would be to demonstrate ROI (return on investment). Leadership development may be strategically important, but it is altogether expensive.
Today’s leading-edge companies (Pepsi, IBM J&J) have been quantifying the benefits of spending time and resources on leadership development for years.
In the future, it is likely that leadership development investments will be a priority of organizations committed to this end. However, plans are afoot to maximize ROI for leadership development efforts by way of effective planning, implementation and evaluation.
New thinking
Some time from now, the thinking would be that leadership and leadership development are going to be inherently collaborative, social and relational processes. It shall be understood as a collective capacity of all members of the organization.
This kind of leadership development is more difficult to design and implement. This is because it is in direct contrast to the popular notion of the past decades where the focus is to train individual leaders.