Why We Must Not Ignore Leadership Training For Managers

Leadership training for managers has now become more crucial than ever. Today's workforce needs managers who show emotional intelligence.

They want senior executives to act as glue to keep the leadership teams together. Employees thrive on high-potential senior leaders that drive employee engagement.

Managers need to develop strategies to build relationships with the employees. Executive leadership needs educational programs to create a positive work culture.

Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other. ~John F. Kennedy

What is Leadership Training?

Leadership training is a training program designed to help you learn and develop new skills and techniques.

Rethink Training: The best process of learning is on-the-job, just-in-time, “nibble-knowledge” to incrementally transform mindsets and skill sets irrevocably. - Tony Dovale

Leadership training includes coaching, interactive sessions, assertive communication, talent development, and other crucial leadership techniques for upskilling. These trainings are suitable for any supervisory role, managerial role, or one who runs a team.

Why is Leadership Training Important?

Statistics say, 60% of the new managers fail or underperform in the first two years of their job role. Also, Interact's survey found that 69% of managers are often uncomfortable communicating with employees.

Moreover, in the same survey, 37% said they're uncomfortable giving direct feedback about their employees' performance if they think the employee might respond negatively to the feedback.

And this is not the end; according to research from Gallup, 50% of employees leave their companies because of their boss.

All the above statistics show that there is something that managers are not doing right.

What are the causes of this level of ineffectiveness when it comes to managing employees?

Generally, though, people in managerial positions have work experience but lack leadership skills. They lack skills that demand the know-how of people management.

To manage an organization effectively it is important to hire managers and provide them leadership courses to improve their work efficiency. Efficient work will ensure happy employees.

Unhappy employees lead to poor work performance and overall organizational growth.

The single biggest way to impact an organization is to focus on leadership development. - John C. Maxwell

A few of the major issues that employees have from their managers:

• Managers do not communicate actively with their employees.
• Managers do not give feedback to their employees.
• Micromanaging every aspect of employees' work.
• Not maintaining transparency while communicating with the employees.
• Not encouraging team-building activities.
• Lacking the use of the right leadership style.
• Lacking leadership qualities.

Often, managers are not well equipped to deal with the employees. They lack the required skills and training. Thus, it is important to hire people based on their skills and experience to understand human psychology. After all, people run businesses.

So, the more synergy among the individuals of an organization, the better it will grow. Providing effective leadership training is the easiest way to upskill the managerial skills.

The Crucial Leadership Training Every Manager Must Have

1. Self Regulation and Motivation

• Managers must be trained to understand the importance of self-regulation. They need to understand how their actions can impact an organization's health.
• Managers must be aware of the sentiments of the employees in a workplace.
• Employees must be self-regulated and motivated to keep the team's spirit high. An effective leader emphasizes on employees' behavior and employees' overall motivation.

Employees drive motivation from many different aspects. A simple thank you message or giving the right feedback do it for them. For this, self-regulation is so important. Employees' morale falls when the manager does not know when and how to respond effectively.

2. Communication

How to communicate effectively is a basic criterion for any manager. But sadly, many managers do not indulge themselves beyond email communication. They only connect with employees on work-related issues.

An effective manager should ensure:

• Communication to advocate any issues impacting employee productivity.
• Internal communication and transparency must be practiced for employee satisfaction.
• To promote a culture of open communication.

However, training the managers to move beyond technical communication must not be encouraged.

3. Managing Conflicts

A team has a diverse set of people. Each one of them would have different opinions and disagreements at times. Conflicts in the workplace are very prominent. It needs people from the supervisory role to make the right calls.

Suppose you manage a team of five people. The overall productivity of the team would be directly proportional to the synergy between them.

It is on the management to keep the team happy and together. Productivity can get affected when conflict between the team members is not addressed. It can also lead to a toxic work environment.

They say in a conflict, truth is the biggest casualty. Therefore, it is important to find common ground where everyone can agree and move on. It requires interpersonal skills. Managers must be trained to develop these soft skills through interactive sessions.

4. Employee Rewards and Recognition

Acknowledgment is hard only if the people are inexperienced. That is why leadership programs are so important. It helps to find other people's talents to consider, and successfully award them.

Not knowing when and how to recognize employees can negatively affect organizational growth. Therefore, managers must take employee recognition seriously to keep the team spirit high.

Recommended: Vantage Rewards and Recognition

5. Conducting a Meeting

It is a beneficial skill to know how to handle yourself in a meeting. A great leadership training method is participant-driven sessions.

• Participant-driven sessions allow managers to understand what and how of business meetings.
• It helps managers to streamline their time with the availability of the participants.

The critical thing to note here is that people generally are not very fond of meetings. Many even dread meetings.

Therefore, meetings must have a definite purpose and plan. It would not be wrong to state that many managers are yet to master the art of conducting effective meetings.

Finally!

Today's diverse workforce needs time managers who have good leadership skills. Also, it is vital that higher authorities look beyond the managerial skill sets before hiring managers. They must build leadership development programs.

Do let us know your views on leadership training for managers. We would like to have your insights on the same.

This article is written by Tanya Ahmed, a Digital Marketer of Vantage Circle, a cloud-based employee engagement platform. She is a leadership enthusiast with a post-graduate MBA in Leadership from Queen Mary University of London. Her experiences range from various fields, including Customer relationships, Content Creating, Sales and Marketing. For any related queries, contact editor@vantagecircle.com.