How to Evaluate a Leadership Development Program

What Do You Need to Develop a Talent Pipeline?

One of the most important tasks in any company is to develop your talent pipeline. Initiating a great leadership development program is one of the best ways you can get started.

Guarantee the future success of your organization by ensuring the components of your leadership development efforts fit your culture and company goals, and don’t forget to take the unique needs of your company into account. 

What Criteria Do You Use to Evaluate Your Leadership Programs?

It may be easy to rely on a training program that has a “one size fits all” model, but that may not be the best solution for your company. Each organization has its own leadership style and organizational culture. Research has shown that planning leadership succession is an essential part of any long-term business plan. Yet, it might be surprising to know how many companies ignore leadership development in favor of more pressing, immediate problems.

To improve your leadership development strategy, look at the criteria you’re using to identify potential leaders. Establish what you’re going to do to help them with their development, and how you’re measuring their success.

Some questions to ask yourself as you review the different programs would be:

• Does this leadership program result in greater productivity by bringing out the best in teams? Teams that are more engaged simply get more done. The Harvard Business Review found that a positive work culture can have an effect on your bottom line, including financial performance and customer satisfaction.
• After managers learn how to effectively lead people, does this program increase employee engagement and retain talent? It's pretty hard to separate these two concepts, actually. Building an enthusiastic workplace is the end game for leaders. So when leaders are able to model behavior and articulate a clear vision, then employees may respond in kind.
• Does the training encourage a positive and nurturing corporate culture where learning is embraced by all? Leaders are responsible for the positive learning culture of their employees. Making learning a key focus will help employees to become more engaged in their work. When leaders are learners, it will plant seeds for the entire organization to cultivate a more positive culture.
• Are emerging leaders and managers able to make better decisions based on strategy and planning instead of reacting to problems? In order to achieve results, leaders must build mental preparedness and have strong people skills—such as communication, self-awareness, coaching, goal-setting, and feedback.
• Does this program train leaders that can set examples for other emerging leaders to follow? The successful future of your company depends on the current quality of leadership. So, a program that offers emerging leaders solid role models is a vital key to any leadership development program framework.

Your Success Tomorrow Depends on Today’s Actions

Your company’s success tomorrow depends on the actions you take today in offering leadership training. Communication, self-awareness, coaching, goal-setting, and feedback are the day-to-day skills managers must master in order to be effective.

Whether it is your HR, training, or executive leadership, it is important for any company to know how to evaluate the curriculum of their leadership development program and to decide whether it is the best fit with your organization and your employees.

If you are ready to get your team started with a proven leadership training model, The Leadership Challenge^® is a research-based development program that increases the leadership potential of anyone, at any level, and in any organization. Developed from over 30 years of ongoing research, The Leadership Challenge^® Workshop is uniquely suited to benefit any organization because it is adaptable, learnable, and easy to implement.