Leadership Development
Posted on 18th October 2024 at 07:37
Background
In 2010 after many years working in Apprenticeship Development both as a trainer and a Manager, I moved into a Management Development Coach role. At the time I didn’t realise just how much experience I’d gained over the years and how much it would continue to grow over the following years. By 2014 I had been promoted to Operations Manager with responsibility for over 30 Management Development Coaches; this not only deepened my understanding of management development but also cemented and developed my own management and leadership skills.
A recent YOUGOV survey stated that 82% of people entering management had no proper training - now this I can directly relate to! This statistic was further supported by 31% of managers and 28% of people leave organisations due to negative relationships with their managers.

Personally I don’t think this is a coincidence!
Over my career I have personally experienced some great management and leadership development. This however has come from an extremely small number of line managers; three to be exact - Anita D, Phil W and Dave H (if you know, you’ll know). However it didn’t come from a structured programme aimed at developing me as a manager - a shame in many ways as sadly on many occasions over the years I have had to learn from my mistakes. And some of those mistakes I regret to this very day. Unfortunately this is the same for so many other managers out there.
So you can imagine my excitement when I was given the opportunity to develop not only a Senior Management/Leadership but also a Middle Management/Leadership programme for the UK arm of a global company in the damage restoration sector.
What followed has shaped my thinking further as to how to approach this type of development and how this could be offered to smaller companies, not just corporate entities.
For reference, throughout this blog when I refer to a ‘leader’, this relates to all individuals regardless of their level or pay grade. They are all leaders whether senior or not.
Why develop your managers and leaders?

Well, fundamentally you don’t have to, you can leave them alone to find their own way to success and there will be no shortage of people that will say that this is effective. The question that they should ask themselves is what is the cost of doing this - where there isn’t a budget line there generally isn’t a focus, so doing nothing costs nothing right? I refer you back to the earlier part of this blog where I highlight the percentage of people that leave organisations due to poor relationships with managers. Don’t forget this statistic also applies to people that are employed as managers so this is an issue at all levels of an organisation!
So, if we take the statistics above as our guide, the cost of not developing your people is far higher; for example recruitment costs and reduction in productivity due to less people as clearly most budgets aren’t adjusted for leavers. Then there is the hidden cost - the impact on the people left picking up additional work, being asked or even expected to do more work for the same; ‘the goodwill’. So many times, I’ve seen organisations trade off the goodwill of their employees while doing little to pay back the effort, and I don’t necessarily mean in monetary terms!
I come across some people who are embarrassed to admit that their team needs a leader and therefore they are needed and in fact very important to the success of their team. This seems to be contradicted when you think that actually the most effective manager can be the one who isn’t needed operationally as the team functions well. In fact both can be true!
Being an effective leader is about creating a team that can function for the most part on its own and still produce the desired outcome, indicating that they are an effective team. It’s also important to recognise that leadership isn’t a rank, job title or position someone holds, it’s the actions that an individual takes that makes them a great leader.
Training and developing leaders in my opinion is about helping them to realise how they can have a more positive impact on those around them. Yes, there are elements that might include strategy planning or financial and business acumen but the bulk of what most individuals need is a greater personal awareness that helps them to identify their impact and subsequently increase the effectiveness of said impact.
Link to business performance
Training leaders is often quite expensive and due to the non-productive nature of the roles, it can be difficult to measure the return on investment (ROI). There are numerous academic models that when applied can demonstrate ROI but they can be difficult and expensive to implement and can often take up a disproportionate amount of time to implement and measure.
By building a programme that sits alongside a business-related project, it becomes possible to place delegates in a position where they have to implement their learning in a timely manner and ultimately demonstrate what they have learned through the improvements made to the business performance. Whether the project is about the culture in a business that might be negatively impacting on staff retention or a clunky process that is wasting people’s valuable time, the possibilities are almost endless!

Results

“So, what results can be expected from this type of approach” is a question I get asked. This is both easy and difficult to answer at the same time, but here goes.
The impact on the delegate is that the cadence of the learning fits with fixing a real issue in their business. They can see the results of their work grow in line with the content delivered to them. It also applies a small amount of pressure as there are multiple short-term deadlines to meet. Using a facilitated approach ensures that the larger part of the learning comes from the conversations generated and not just from conceptual models delivered by the trainer or facilitator. This helps delegates to forge relationships with colleagues that will support cross functional working long into the future; meanwhile continuing to help the delegate to see their knowledge and skills practically improve over time.
From the business’s perspective, they can see their leaders grow, knowing that they are focused on improving the performance of the business. By including a final presentation to the board of directors which tells the story of their individual journeys, highlighting the issue they have chosen to work on, the elements they have fixed on the way and importantly any financial impact they may have had, brings the ROI to life for most people. I’ve seen potential figures that run into the millions in large organisations!
Summary
You can have it all. Improve the knowledge and skills of your business leaders, improve the engagement of staff while improving the performance of your business, all through leadership training. Who doesn’t want that??
Dave Bownes
Director,
Haynes Oliver Limited
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