Leadership Skills Training

Leadership skills training
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Training on good leadership behaviors
Top leadership development commits to providing training on good leadership behaviors. One of the ways of training on good leadership behavior is training leaders to maintain a strong executive engagement. This is because commitment of top leaders means that the training program will be highly regarded, aligned with strategy and focused on the right issues. This way, senior leaders can coach followers and monitor progress. Another way of training in good leadership behavior involves identifying leadership competencies. This involves isolating and agreeing on leadership competencies that are most important to the organization (Josh, 2008). It forms the basis of succession planning, career development and other talent related processes.
Training that shows how leaders can align their activities with business strategies is another good leadership behavior that is emphasized in training. Depending on the type of organizations, leaders and managers focus on company specific business strategies, organization’s culture, values and strategies. For instance, top executives may meet to identify common attributes and assemble them into a set of leadership competencies (Josh, 2008).
Another good behavior in leadership training is focusing on all levels of leadership. This is in a bid to develop leadership that is capable of moving a company forward and meeting key strategic objectives. For instance, the training may focus on training line managers on coaching, delegation, change management and development. It may also focus on functional managers on leadership, management and vision. It may also focus on training top leaders on management using external education and consultants (Josh, 2008).
Training on good leadership behavior is comprehensive involving developmental assignments, meetings with global counterparts, case studies, external education and e learning. This is in a bid to give leaders a complete experience through experiential learning (Josh, 2008). Training in leadership good behaviors should also integrate talent management. This is achieved by building a sustainable leadership pipeline. This is achieved through programs that identify potential successors and place them into the right development programs (Josh, 2008). Companies can engage these good leadership principles in their leadership trainings. This way, leaders at different levels are empowered to make decisions that are in line with core business areas for maximum profitability. Organizations succeed through enhanced leadership with training focused on these good leadership areas.
Differences between leadership and management
There are distinct differences between management and leadership activities. Managing involves control and manipulation while leadership involves influencing and persuading others within the organization (Keefe, John, & Chinna, 2008). Part of management involves taking responsibility to lead others and thus leaders could therefore be described as the core activity of any manager. No organization can survive without management and without leadership (McLean, 2008). A manager is formally appointed to a role in the hierarchy and is associated with formal authority. He directs the actions of subordinates, plans, organizes, directs and controls the activities of human resources towards the achievement of set objectives.
A leader on the other hand occupies a role which involves conforming to a set of behavioral norms and expectations that emanate from followers. A leader is conferred power from followers that allow him/ her to influence their actions (McLean, 2008). Essentially, a manager uses authority or the right to get others to do things by virtue of their positional power or status in the hierarchy while a leader leads through the ability to influence other people to do things using a certain degree of personal power or charisma (McLean, 2008). Leadership and management are complimentary systems of action and both are necessary for success in a business environment.
Others consider leadership as a facet of management. This is whereby managers in organizations undertake leadership functions such as commanding and directing in administrative implementation. Additionally many self-managed teams may not require leadership as the individuals are self-motivated (McLean, 2008). This indicates that leadership may just be an asset and not essential. However, management and leadership are essential for organizations to meet their objectives, to manage human resources, to achieve change effectively and to achieve overall organizational success (McLean, 2008).
Transformational leadership is one of the most useful leadership styles for managers. Transformational leadership involves developing positive relationships with subordinates in order to strengthen employee and organizational performance. Managers who display transformational leadership encourage employees to look beyond their own needs and focus on the larger group’s interest. They achieve these results through attributed charisma, intellectual stimulation, inspirational motivation and individualized consideration. They are charismatic to their followers and serving as role models, intellectually stimulate the employees, persuade employees to believe in the mission and its attainability and they meet employees’ emotional needs (Burke & Colins, 2010).
Another leadership style includes contingent reward leadership. Managers promise rewards contingent on good performance or punishments when they fail to meet expectations. Management by exception leadership is the style where managers focus on identifying error and implementing disciplinary action for poor performance. Managers that emphasize transformational leadership are the most effective and are espied as the most satisfying by their subordinates. This form of leadership has been found to have a positive effect on organization’s productivity and financial results (Burke & Colins, 2010). This is because it is associated with clarifying, inspiring, supporting and team building as opposed to contingent reward or transactional leadership, which is unlikely to generate enthusiasm and commitment to task objectives.
Transformational leadership inspires trust loyalty and admiration in followers who are then able to subordinate their individual interests to the interests of the group. It encourages teamwork spirit and involvement. It also motivates followers to question assumptions, t o take intelligent risks and come up with creative observations. They share their learning experiences within and across departments in the organization which increases organization’s knowledge management. Knowledge is an important way of leveraging the organization’s core competencies in pursuit of its competitive advantage (Nguyen & Mohamed, 2011).
In as much as transformational leadership is considered as the most effective form of leadership, it shows less strong effect on organization’s knowledge management that transactional leadership. This is because people interested in reward and recognition are motivated and directed to improve in sharing of knowledge that they would otherwise hoard as it is perceived as a source of power. They freely share knowledge in anticipation of rewards such as salary increments and other added benefits of improved performance (Nguyen & Mohamed, 2011). Thus, organiza...