Put these numbers to work in the organization you lead and calculate the return on investment:

• Increase the level of fully engaged employees from 30-80%
• Increase in profitability by 10%
• Double your employee retention rate
• Increase the rate of goal achievement in your employees
• Increase sustained performance following training by 20%

A strategic focus on leadership training for your leaders coupled with coaching can have that impact.

You are thinking – no way. Let’s take a look at some of the data. Did you know that according to Gallup only one-third of all employees in the United States are fully engaged at work? That means that if I am leading 10 employees only 3 are fully engaged.

The greatest variable in that engagement – how they are led or managed. A group’s engagement level can vary up to 70% solely based on how they are led. That would change from just three individuals being engaged to 8. Pretty significant.

But does engagement create high performance and if not, what does?

Gallup discovered instilling a “high-development” culture has a significant impact on organizational performance.

What is a “high-development” culture? It is a culture that places value on the growth of individuals. Here is what they found in high development organizations:

• 11% greater profitability from organizations that make a strategic investment in employee development.
• Two times more likely to retain their employees
• The opportunity for career growth is the top reason people give for changing jobs.

Earth shattering? I don’t think so, in fact it seems fairly intuitive. High achievers want you to invest in their development and will seek it out. Particularly millennials, the largest generation in the current workforce. Ninety percent of millennials when asked, list professional development and career growth as a top priority.

An interesting discovery in the research is that development does not equal promotion. Not every employee is seeking the next position. However, they want to grow based on their individual needs. Many are looking for that individual development.

Let’s draw some conclusions:

The data tells us that well-led workers are engaged and organizations with a strategic focus on developing individuals increases profitability, employee productivity and retains employees.

What does that tell? Provide leadership development to your leaders!

Give them the knowledge, skills, opportunities and feedback to grow and continually improve.

An analysis by Gallup on what is effective in developing leaders came out with three areas:

1. Continuous multimodal support
2. It’s integrated into the workplace
3. It’s personalized

Intuition says individualized training programs are expensive. I think that requires deeper thought. The question that needs to be answered is: “What is the return on investment (ROI) for the training program?”

According to the Association for Talent Development for the years 2017-2018 employers spent over $1200 annually per employee on training and employees averaged approximately 33 hours. What are employers getting back for that investment?

Research in the training area has shown an increase in performance following a typical workshop or short course in the weeks after the course. Sustaining that improvement and achieving the goals set in the training. Not so much.

Retention and performance decline and head towards prior levels in about two weeks. We have all personally had that experience. We come back from a short training all excited and energized to implement our newly learned skills. Then the reality of the daily challenges sets in. A month later those goals are just a memory.

What are the results of coaching in the workplace?

Research has shown:

• Sustained retention of the material learned
• Sustained levels of performance greater than 20%.
• Higher levels of achievement of performance goals when supported by coaching

I call that result in a potentially better leader.

Coaching also fulfills the areas recommended in leadership training; continuous and multimodal, integrated into the workplace, and personalized.

Leadership is the great differentiator. If you have a leadership culture in your organization you, your employees and everyone associated with your organization will benefit.

How to get started in coaching to see if it works for your leaders. Prototype a coaching initiative and measure the results. Measure the return on investment with your development dollars.

Bottom line if you want to develop your leaders using an effective methodology, coaching should be one of the tools in your development toolbox. Contact Gary Slyman, President and Founder of Great Transitions Strategies to explore how coaching can be integrated into your organization.

Develop your leadership, develop your leaders, and differentiate yourself and your organization.

“I went on vacation for two weeks and was called almost every day. I had to stay current with my email to keep things on track and when I got back, I was still buried.  It took two days to catch up. My greatest frustration: my group did not make any decisions other than the routine. They held all the challenging issues for me after I got back.”

Does this sound familiar?

How your organization runs when you are not there is ultimate measurement of your leadership. On a scale of 1-10 score yourself ________.

If it takes you being there to get the desired results, keep things on track, maintain key client and stakeholder relationships, are you really leading your organization? Let’s do a quick analysis.

First, you may need to solidify your definition of leadership. Most definitions have the elements of setting the vision and creating the conditions to inspire and empower others within the organization to achieve a shared goal.

What is your definition of leadership?

_______________________________________________________________________________

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Now that you have your leadership definition, let’s determine the causal factors of your score. Typically, leaders who require centralized control and a hierarchy for decision making score lower. That may work fine and be a requirement for certain organizations. However, as leaders many times we hold onto more than we need to. You are ultimately accountable, everyone gets that. Does that directly translate into you being unable to leave the organization for a period of time?

Most people have an impression of the military and large corporations as top down decision-making organizations. General Stanley McChrystal in his book Team of Teams describes how he led using the concept of shared consciousness: trust built between team members and other teams based on the understanding of their shared purpose.

He regularly had to be the final decision maker on rapid response operations. That meant waking him up in the middle of the night and briefing him on details, so he could give the go-ahead for the mission. After all he was accountable, just as you are, for everything that happened in his organization.

His conclusions were that he was not adding value to the decision and was actually slowing the process and at times creating more risk. As the key person of the organization he became a limiting factor. In business terms he was adding costs to the operation.

He decentralized his organization’s decision making by creating an environment of transparency, that ensured an understanding of his intent, and the shared purpose. It took significant time and effort to educate, train, and inculcate the practice into his organizational culture.

The result: an organization that could respond quickly and decisively, making the experts on scene the decision-makers. That’s a military example, what about business. There are numerous examples, one of the most notable is what Lou Gerstner Jr. accomplished in his turnaround of IBM. He focused his intent on improving operations through a culture change. He was steadfast in pushing his culture of “customer first”, empowered his executives, and saved the company. If the largest of organizations can succeed what about your business/organization/team?

Leaders create other leaders and opportunities for them to lead. How are you developing those that work for you? How well does your team know and operate on your intent? How well do you know your intent? Make it better today.

Set the vision and create the conditions that inspire and empower your leadership team to achieve your shared goals. Then develop your leadership team through education and training to execute your intent until it becomes part of your culture. It will make your organization run as if you are there when you are not.