Leadership Development can Hone Employees’ Skills

Leadership development and training efforts can do far more than identify potential candidates for management. Such programs can help employees hone a wide variety of skills that can help them improve in many areas of business.

Improving communication skills can help with both customer services and sales and improve relationships with both clients and vendors. The skills necessary to handle a difficult employee are also those necessary for handling an irate customer or a grumpy supplier. The ability to persuade employees that a plan is worthwhile comes in handy for a salesman.

Simply getting employees thinking about the big picture and the overall strategy and mission of the organization is one of the main goals of leadership development. Even if the employees do not advance to management they will see how they fit into the organization and could be more committed to its’ overall success.

Those who can think strategically will be in a better position to improve business processes and policies. They will also be in a better position to adopt new policies and procedures.

Leadership Training Pays Off

Honing employees’ skills in areas like customer service, communication, planning, strategic thinking and goal setting helps everybody. Employees who know how to plan will be more capable of implementing new ideas and ways of doing business. Those who can think strategically will be better problem solvers.

Every cent spent on leadership development and training will pay off. It will pay in the of smarter, more astute, more involved and more perceptive employees with better skills and a better attitude. It can also pay off in managers and workers that are capable of thinking for themselves and solving problems on their own.

Instead of micromanagement your organization can benefit from increased creativity and workers that can handle difficulties. It will be more flexible and more prepared for change and evolution.

Engaging Employees is a Leader’s Top Job

Employee engagement is one of a leader’s top jobs yet most leaders do not seem to comprehend this important duty. Some managers do not know how to engage employees others simply do not understand what it is.

Engaging employees means making sure that they are interested in the organization and its mission, committed to the survival and success of the organization and willing to work hard for it. Although motivation is an important component in this process, it is only a small part of engagement.

The problem is that many leaders seem to mistake motivating employees and engaging employees. Motivation means a sort of momentary excitement about the organization and its future that soon passes. Engagement means a long term commitment to the organization.

The reason so many leaders fail at this task is that they only try to motivate. They hold a sort of pep rally and get every fired up. Everybody is excited for a day or so then quickly falls back into the same old boring routine. In many cases such efforts only committed hard working employees cynical about the organization and its leaders.

Therefore you need to have an ongoing employee engagement effort that tells workers that the organization thinks they are valuable. Such an effort gives workers a reason to stay and to commit themselves to the organization and its mission. In many cases this will involve employee, education, leadership training and management training.

A successful leader knows that engagement is much more than motivation. He or she does not lie to the people, instead he or she tells the truth and reminds them of what is stake. People who understand what is actually going on will be far more effective than “motivated” people.

During World War II for example, Winston Churchill told the British people he had nothing to offer but “blood, sweat and tears.” His enemy Adolph Hitler tried to motivate the German people with stirring speeches and large events similar to pep rallies. The British won the war, Hitler lost even though his people were supposedly more motivated. The lesson here is that you need engagement not motivation.

Conducting Effective Management Training is Essential for Success and Survival

One of the biggest mistakes that organizations make in tough economic times is to cut the management training budget. In quite a few cases management classes and leadership development efforts disappear when sales fall or budgets get cut.

Unfortunately this is one of worst mistakes that an organization can make. In tough economic times, effective leadership and quality management is more important than ever before. The challenges are increasing and so are the burdens placed on management. The problems grow bigger but there are fewer resources than ever before.

Conducting management training that is actually effective is vital in such an environment. Managers in today’s economy must have knowledge of the latest tools and techniques in order to deal with a rapidly changing situation. More importantly, basic management concepts such as strategy and employee engagement are more important than every before.

For example it can be difficult or nearly impossible for an organization to maintain its core mission and keep its values in today’s economy. People are so busy just trying to keep afloat that they forget about the big picture and the goals. When the economy starts improving and sales pick up again they will be unable to cope.

This is why strategies like smart goals which emphasize the outfit’s basic mission and transmit it to employees are so important. A few well thought out goals can help the organization stay on track and survive even in an incredibly tough economy.

To implement such plans you will need to have highly trained managers and effective leaders. That means you need to redouble management training efforts and leadership development programs when the economy gets bad. If you don’t your organization will not survive.

Surveys can improve your Training Program

Employee surveys and customer surveys can improve your organization’s training program. Many training programs fall short because they do not address the real needs of the organizations. Properly done surveys can show you what deficiencies you have and help you address them.

Customer surveys can help you identify problems with customer service and your products. For example a survey can show you well your employees are doing answering customers’ questions. You can see how much knowledge your employees actually have about the product.

Using the results of customer surveys you can devise a training program designed to meet these needs. For example a course on customer service or program designed to familiarize everybody in the organization with the product and its features.

Training employees properly is the best way to ensure effective customer service and keep customers coming back. Customer surveys can show you what level of customer service your organization is really delivering.

Employee surveys can help you identify what problems the employees are having. For example a basic survey of product knowledge can show you what subjects you need to concentrate on in your next training session.

Surveys and Effective Training

Surveying must be constantly done in order to be effective. Conditions are constantly changing and so are the challenges facing your organization. Therefore you should constantly conduct surveys in order to identify trends, opportunities and problems.

An example of this could be a survey to see how long customers are being kept on the phone. This can show you how effective your phone customer service. Customers who are forced to wait too long on the phone will hang up and call your competition.

Other surveys can identify problems with your online customer service and with service in the field. For example a survey of how long it takes a technician to reach a customer’s location. Finally, surveying customer satisfaction can show you if the customers are happy with your service or not. That could be the most important piece of information of all.

Creating Effective Employee Surveys and Leadership Development Programs

Many managers do not realize it but there is a vital link between employee surveys and leadership development programs. No organization can be effective without effective employee engagement and effective engagement cannot occur without effective leaders.

The best way to create effective leaders is to promote competent and effective people from within. Workers respond better to people they like and trust and to leaders and managers that they can sympathize with. That means leadership training efforts can pay off with increased employee engagement.

Employee surveys are vital to leadership development programs because they can identify where the problems are in an organization. Such surveys can tell a management team why employees are dissatisfied and what change management steps can be taken to end that dissatisfaction.

Employee Engagement Equals Success

The first rule of modern business is: the higher the level of employee engagement the more effective the organization. Unfortunately many companies never learn this critical lesson. They neglect leadership development until it is too late.

To make matters worse an increasing number of organizations seem to regard employees as a resource to be managed rather than people who need to be motivated. They end up treating workers like cattle and see their best people walk out the door. Naturally quite a few of those people who leave take their customers with them.

Unfortunately a natural response to this is to bring in outside consultants or managers to solve the problem. Instead of instituting management training and leadership development programs and helping within rise to their full potential.

In such a situation a good system of employee surveys can help the management team identify the causes of low morale and address them. Unfortunately the only surveys many companies do are exit surveys. Those tell the company little except why an individual left.

In many cases such a survey arrives way too late because the employee who has left has taken valuable expertise, experience and customers with her. Such resources cannot be replaced.

Taking a little time to understand the situation and develop managers that can really grasp what is going on can often prevent employee flight. Yet it does not happen because management refuses to undertake either employee surveys or leadership development programs.

Employee Engagement in a Bad Economy

Unfortunately many organizations think that they can safely ignore things like employee engagement and morale in a bad economy. Far too many managers think: “the job market is bad so my employees are stuck here so I don’t need employee engagement.” Nothing could be further from the truth because morale and engagement are just as vital in a terrible economy as in a good one.

Even though the economy is bad there are still job openings out there. When there are job openings many employers still give precedence to resumes from those applicants that have jobs. Potential employers are also looking for people with current experience and a good track record. That means that your best people are still just as likely to walk out the door.

Another problem is that good morale is necessary for productivity in a bad economy. The workforce needs to be engaged because there are more firms competing for less work. That means your team has to be just as energetic and enthusiastic as ever before.

That means employee engagement efforts are just as vital as ever even if companies neglect them. In many cases, such activities are more important than ever because workers are worried about the bad economy. Management must always take the attitude of workers into consideration when making decisions.

Employee Surveys and Employee Engagement

The first thing that needs to be done is to engage the level of employee engagement at your organization. The best way to do this is through a well-crafted employee survey. Many employers are afraid to do this because they fear the results or worker demands that they cannot meet.

Managers need to get over this destructive attitude and conduct the surveys. In many cases they will be pleased by the results. One advantage to such a survey is that it can identify issues that can be addressed without spending money.

For example employees could be worried about job security or the future of the organization. Managers could address these issues through effective communication.

Fraud: the Biggest Challenge to Arab Governments

The biggest challenge to the new Arab governments that emerge as a result of the ongoing revolutions in the Middle East could be fraud. A culture of fraud pervades both government and business in that part of the world.

Fraud and the ethical atmosphere that it creates can make it hard to do business in the Middle East. Telecom operators in the region report that up to 20% of their revenues are lost through various kinds of fraud. Embassies in Middle Eastern countries regularly issue warnings for tourists to beware of scams.

Fraud even pervades the political culture because people distrust governments believing that all elections are rigged. The situation has been made worse because media outlets like Al Jazeera are regularly exposing fraud which increases cynicism about government and alienates the people from it.

New Ethical Standards Needed

The first order of the new governments in the Middle East will have to be implementing new ethical standards. Under these standards fraud will have to be treated as a crime rather than business as usual.

A good start would be cracking down on bribery, police corruption and vote rigging. The crowds in the streets seem to be demanding a new ethical atmosphere.

One of the events that helped spark the Egyptian unrest was the murder of a young man who had risked his life to expose police corruption. Such frustration isn’t about to go away soon.

The only way the new ethical standards will work is if Arab governments are willing to punish fraud and other such crimes. A first order of business will have to be putting the must blatant offenders on trial for their misdeeds.

This will be hard because the corrupt officials seem to have controlled most of the apparatus of government in many countries. That includes the police, the courts, the military and in some cases religious authorities.

Another problem is that almost every institution in some countries has been tainted by the culture of corruption. Even the Mosques and religious leaders have taken money. Political leaders of all stripes have used oil money and foreign aid from Western nations to buy popular support. They have also engaged in sweetheart deals with foreign companies and governments.

Creating a new ethical climate in the Middle East is going to be a tall order but it will have to be done for the revolutions to succeed. If new ethics can’t be implemented these new Middle Eastern revolutions will fail like those in the past.