Brought to you by Business Training Library
The #1 Provider of Training Solutions for Growing Companies!
In this issue:
1. Developing Leaders Within Your Team
2. The Manager Development Process
3. New Marketing Theme: What's In Your Toolbox?
4. Course Review: Giving Feedback: A Manager's Guide
1. Developing Leaders Within Your Team
Brought to you in partnership with SkillSoft, one of our e-learning content partners.
The truest mark of a good leader is your commitment to teach others to lead. One way you can do this is through delegation, which is a way of teaching tomorrow's leaders. Managers who can lead and teach others to lead, demonstrate their confidence in themselves and in their employees. They still lead, but they lead stronger, more capable people.
The goal of delegating is to empower your employees, and ultimately to share leadership with them. In doing so, you are bringing your employees into positions where they have greater control over the decisions that affect their own jobs, and they will feel they are contributing more to the company. In order to successfully share leadership with your staff, consider the following suggestions.
- Share responsibility.
By delegating tasks, give your employees responsibility, as well as the the authority that goes along with the responsibility.
- Take small steps.
Start small, and hand over more and more responsibility as confidence develops.
- Encourage risk taking.
Let your employees take risks with small projects that aren't critical to the company. Let them succeed or fail, and learn from their mistakes.
- Provide constant feedback.
Tell your employees how they can improve their skills. Develop strong, non-threatening relationships so your staff views your feedback as opportunities to learn, rather than as criticism.
- Provide appropriate training.
Provide on-the-job training to teach your employees new skills, and cross-train to give them a greater understanding of the company as a whole.
- Train your employees in critical thinking.
Encourage your staff to examine processes and procedures, and to come up with more effective ways of doing things. Encourage them to be masters of change. Who could know the task better than the person who is doing the work? Gather their input.
- Share insights with your employees.
Inform them of the direction in which your organization is headed, and enlighten them about what their roles might be in helping your company grow.
Sharing leadership also means providing to your employees the same information upon which you base your decisions. Give them access to reports, industry information, and any other pertinent data you use in making decisions. Share this information on a regular basis. Think about what comes across your desk that people don't know how to interpret, much less how it affects them. Untangle the mystery. Explain the reports in layman's terms.
Remember, building a powerful team makes you a more powerful leader. Take advantage of the leadership abilities of your team. The possibilities are limitless.
If you're looking to develop the leaders of your team, Business Training Library can help! Demo our e-learning, DVD and video-based management and leadership training courses today.
2. The Manager Development Process
Brought to you in partnership with SkillSoft, one of our e-learning content partners.
To ensure your company remains competitive in today's information-age society, you must identify, develop, and promote managers who exhibit the core competencies necessary to manage effectively now and into the future. Of course, that's great in theory, but how do you define, develop, or recruit competencies? They are, after all, not easy to list on a resume.
First, understand that competencies are defined as the underlying personal characteristics that are expressed in observable behavior and action. Competencies include:
- Ability
- Personality
- Motivation
- Knowledge
Although these competencies can be elusive, you can use a competency-based process to develop managers. Follow these steps:
- Define your corporate goals and values.
Find a quiet place away from the office and write down "who" your company is. What are your corporate goals? What must happen to meet the bottom line? How will you get there? Who will take you there? Think about ethics, honesty, values. Who is your company? Who do you want it to be? Those are your corporate goals and values.
- Identify the core capabilities of the business.
What is your company able to provide now? What would you like it to be able to provide in the future? These are your core capabilities.
- Create a leadership competency model to identify the core strategic competencies required in various management positions.
Try this exercise: Take out a sheet of paper and create a grid. In the first column, list your staff members. Across the top row, list the competencies needed to achieve a goal, such as leadership, planning, specialist knowledge, and written and oral communication skills. Rate your staff members as one through five, with one being the lowest and five being the highest, under each competency. You'll need to fine-tune your process, but that will get you started.
- Identify candidates with matching skills.
Use your competency grid to identify future leaders. It will give you a clear idea of your current competency base and will help you define areas for developing managers. Some high-level managers also use measurement tools such as the Inventory of Management Competencies. This tool provides a structured assessment of 16 generic management competencies, or behaviors, found to contribute to superior management performance. It allows for either self-completion, or for peers or managers to assess an individual.
The 16 competencies fall into four general categories:
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Choose your future leaders from this pool, and develop any areas that would strengthen competencies.
Once you have identified future leaders, recruit or promote those leaders, and give them the information and resources they need to hone their skills and grow into their management positions. When you design your managers' development process to focus on the competencies necessary for today's competitive business environment, you are taking a huge step in ensuring your company's success now and in the future—and developing the leaders of tomorrow.
Interested in learning more about our competency modules? Contact one of our e-learning representatives today!
3. New Marketing Theme: What's In Your Toolbox?
Do your employees have the right skills to succeed? Your e-learning program provides learners with a wide range of learning opportunities … your employees can add new skills and knowledge to their toolbox from work or home 24x7x365.
Contact us today at 888.432.3077, to implement our latest marketing theme! Energize your training program and get your employees all the tools they need to meet your business objectives!
4. Course Review: Giving Feedback: A Manager's Guide
Course Group
Communication
Course Code
COMM0525
Media
e-Learning
Course Overview
The performance of your business depends upon the performance of every member of your staff. Thus a key skill for all who manage staff is the ability to provide candid, constructive feedback about performance. The purpose of this course is to enable you to enhance your skills in giving feedback. The course starts by exploring the nature of feedback, and it then develops a practical approach to the feedback process, detailing five logical steps. However, in some situations it is not always sensible to use a standard approach and so the course concludes by considering how to cope with challenging situations, such as giving feedback to the staff member who is angry or upset.
Target Audience
Management at any level
Expected Duration
4 hours
Shannon's Rating
4 Stars (Out of 5)
Shannon's Review
Often, managers find it challenging to provide feedback to employees, regardless if it is positive or negative. This course teaches a five-step process to help with some of the situations or barriers that may arise.
This course also discusses the importance of trust. All good working relationships are based on trust, and allows both managers and employees to know where they stand with each other. Included in this course are great worksheets and guides that will allow you, as a manager, to practice the five-step process along with other skill guides that will offer the opportunity to practice other ideas learned.
Overall, this course provides appropriate strategies that can be used in many different situations, hopefully you will be able to find words of wisdom and apply some new techniques!
Shannon Kluczny is a Senior Account Manager at Business Training Library.
Interested in previewing Giving Feedback: A Manager's Guide? Start a free demo of this communication training course today!
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