When you're looking for the next generation of leaders for your business, you typically have two options; hire externally or promote from within. There are benefits to both of course, but conventional wisdom would suggest that promoting internally is the way to go, particularly as those who are advanced in this way tend to have teams that are around 10% more productive versus external hires.
Why Is It Important To Identify Leaders Within An Organisation?
You'll typically find a leadership identification and training focus playing a central role in any good business management course due to its importance. Those already in the business will have a much better understanding of your field and the company ethos. Of course, many external hires work perfectly well, but it stands to reason that someone already in your business will cost less to train.
How Do You Identify Leaders In The Workplace?
Essentially, there are FIVE MAIN areas you need to focus on when looking to promote team leaders and managers from within your existing workforce. Of course, each person is unique, so there's no such thing as a standard approach to this kind of thing, but the following principles apply in pretty much every case.
So, come with us as we examine five ways to encourage leaders in your workplace…
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Method #1 - Encourage 'out Of The Box' Thinking
One of the most important things that you can do to create the conditions in which your employees want to work on their personal development is to encourage out-of-the-box thinking. This means letting go of the reins a little and giving employees room in which to grow. It also means being receptive to new ideas and not pouring scorn on new ideas - even if they're not ideas that are eventually pursued.
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Method #2 - Know Which Leadership Skills Matter
Leadership is leadership, but what's required can change markedly from one industry to another. As such, you should be sure to focus on the leadership skills that matter to you and your business. If motivation is more important in your field than other interpersonal skills, be sure to weigh it accordingly in your considerations on who to promote and which training to provide.
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Method #3 - Create a Clear Pathway to Management
If there's one thing guaranteed to encourage your employees to progress, it has a clear and defined path they can take to get there. You need to provide lots of support and advice to these employees, as they need to build their confidence to get there, but when they see a beaten track to follow, they are that much more likely to believe that they'll make the step successfully.
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Method #4 - Offer Relevant Training
The importance of providing leadership training cannot be underestimated, both from a revenue and employee retention standpoint. Amazingly, the stats show that companies that don't provide leadership development training are missing out on, on average, 7% of their total annual sales. Short courses online in leadership can be affordable and easy to arrange, so offering it doesn't have to cost the earth.
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Method #5 - Get Existing Management Involved in Mentoring
Despite what you might have heard, most people have to learn how to be good leaders rather than simply being born good at it. As such, the wisdom and guidance existing management can provide can be invaluable in helping staff reach their full potential. There to guide them along their journey, mentors can be hugely advantageous - hence why all OCA courses come with one!
The measures you take to encourage and empower your staff to become leaders are hugely important as you're preparing them to drive the company forward in the future. The cost of training in terms of time and funding is insignificant compared to the benefits that confident leaders bring.
Drive Your Business Forwards With OCA Short Courses Online
Being a manager or team leader is a multi-faceted role that requires you to think deeply about the needs of your staff and your company as a whole. However, when you have video-based, CPD-endorsed online learning from OCA to support you, there's nothing you can't master. Created in collaboration with top industry experts, our content forms part of our next-level learning experience.
What's meant by next-learning? Well, you can get a really good idea by watching our Student Study Demo, as it details things like 1-to-1 mentoring and how engaging and immersive our training is. It's easy to see why our students view ours as the best online education Australia has to offer, but if you need more convincing, head to our website, www.onlinecoursesaustralia.edu.au, to find out more.
Alternatively, if you'd prefer to speak with us directly about your precise training needs, simply give us a call at 1300 611 403 and have a chat with our friendly team. Failing that, drop us a line at [email protected], and we’ll reply as quickly as we can.
