Why Leadership Training is Important for ALL Employees

As a manager, you undoubtedly know the value of workforce training, but you may not have a full understanding of what you can offer your employees. For instance, many training efforts focus narrowly on honing only job-specific or related skills, which may leave workers wanting for tools that give them a chance to advance in their careers.

Consequently, it’s a good idea to make sure leadership training is a regular part of your continuing education efforts, as it will provide all of the following benefits and more:

Stay competitive within your industry

How do you know who your next generation of leaders is if you don’t cultivate those skills early in their careers? The latest Global Leadership Forecast from DDI shows that companies that prioritise development of leadership skills beyond just their existing managers are 4.2 times more likely to have financial success than those that do not do so. After all, many of the skills that make a great leader also make a great teammate, and more to the point, development of these skills for even entry-level workers can help you identify who has true leadership potential.

Indeed, the study found that organisations that prioritise leadership for all employees tend to have stronger leaders at their top, and more women in decision-making roles.

Leadership skills are critical for any employee.

Give workers a direction

Many people enter their chosen industries because they want to spend the rest of their working lives in some aspect of that field. However, companies may not always give them a path to do so. In conjunction with formal leadership training, it’s also a good idea to have a mentorship program that pairs your managers at every step of the ladder with workers a rung or two below them.

DDI found that, among the companies it examined, more than half of those rated in the top one-third for financial performance had formalised mentorship programmes in place.

Keep great employees around

These days, too many industries suffer from “brain drain” due to high employee turnover. While almost 2 in 3 employees told IBM researchers that they intend to stay in positions when skills training is available, more than 1 in 5 have no intention of sticking around if they don’t have development opportunities.

Keeping employees around is important, too. For instance, almost two-thirds of managers surveyed said their biggest challenge was shortages of talent and leadership. Moreover, the data shows that companies with higher skill levels were 10% more productive, and 4 in 5 of managers felt training was a critical part of success. In fact, companies with training and more skilled employees were able to roll out new products and processes 22% faster than those without.

Better communication

One of the most important qualities of any effective leader is strong communication skills and, on top of that, good communicators also tend to be better teammates, according to Growmap. A big reason why companies investing in leadership training have more success is that teams with stronger teamwork and communication skills can operate as more effective and cohesive units than those where employees have difficulty getting their ideas across.

With all this in mind, if your company doesn’t invest in leadership training for workers at every level of the organisation or doesn’t do so at all you are likely leaving plenty of opportunity for growth or success on the table. To get up to speed with the rest of your specific industry, it would be wise to enrol in ICML’s course offerings on leadership development. By doing so, you can set yourself up for long-term worker retention and financial growth, so get in touch with us today to learn more about what we can do for you.