Leadership development refers to the tasks dedicated to enhancing the capabilities of an individual to take on leadership roles and responsibilities. This covers programs in management, education, seminars, workshops, and even until internships. These opportunities are often focused on developing and propagating new knowledge, skills, self-awareness, and the abilities needed to lead effectively. Having a strong leadership base within your business can ultimately determine how successful your organization can be. If your company is dedicated to developing its own leaders, then you can expect a significant increase in your competitive advantage over the market. Attracting, developing and retaining talent, driving strategy execution, and increasing your overall chances of success, especially when you are operating your business in a widely competitive industry.
Despite how important leadership development is in an organization, a lot of businesses still fall short on trying to develop and implement it. More often than not, managerial positions are give to individuals who do not have the right qualities and qualifications to lead a team. The lack or proper leadership can be very detrimental for your business. Including, but not limited to, the loss in productivity, high rates in turnovers, low morale, absenteeism, and a whole lot more.
That is why it is important for all businesses to be able to come up with a leadership development plan of their own. The document can be a very useful tool that you establish in and around your company, to create a relatively secure pipeline to produce future good leaders and improve the ones that are currently in place. The growth and evolution of your business is directly proportional to how you develop your leaders and how your leaders run your business. A leadership development plan allows you to outline a lot of the details steps so that you can identify and nurture the following leaders within your organization. Businesses are complicated entities to manage. It can be quite a chore to keep track of all the components within your business just to make sure that you have everything covered and taken into account. That’s why you need competent leaders to manage that business for you. And to establish competent leaders in and around your business, a business leadership development plan can easily help you with that.
Leadership is and will always be an important component in every business operation out there. Businesses won’t last very long if there is no capable person at the helm. So writing a business leadership development plan may not be as easy as it may seem. That is why before you attempt drafting a document of your own, check out these business leadership development plan samples that we have listed for you down below. Once you have acquainted yourself with the document, with what it looks like and how it works, feel free to use these samples as guides or even as templates so that you can write an effective business leadership development plan.
3+ Business Leadership Development Plan Samples
1. Business Leadership Development Plan
2. Sample Business Leadership Development Plan
3. Business Integrate Leadership Development Plan
4. Business School Leadership Development Plan
What Is a Business Leadership Development Plan?
A business leadership development plan is a plan that is dedicated to assisting employees and potential leaders gain and develop the skills that they need to develop their own leadership competencies to prepare them for the larger management and leadership roles within your company. A leadership development plan outlines the different steps that you need to take to become a better leader. It should include a comprehensive list of skills that you need to improve, the responsibilities that you have to take, and the tasks that you need to complete. Most leadership plans work as agreements between the employer and the employee. For business leadership development plans, the benefits extend beyond a single person, to the confines of the business itself.
When leadership development is aligned with the overall strategy of the business, your company will be able to link their investments in supporting potential leaders for training programs or reimbursements in tuition to expand your own goals and strategic plans. These efforts can lead to the larger likelihood that your management and other stakeholders in your organization will approve the further development of your leadership plan.
Leadership development plans are critical for businesses who wish to continue operating even in times of crises and even when working with competitive markets. A well drafted leadership plan has a lot of potential in trying to keep the valuable individuals in your business to continue working with you and to discourage them from seeking other opportunities in other competing companies and industries. The better your leaders and managers are, the greater the potential of your business to make a name for itself and to remain relevant in a very competitive industry.
Elements of a Business Leadership Development Plan
Once you have thought about your long term leadership goals and the qualities of a leader that you are looking for, you should now be able to write a leadership development plan of your own. When writing a development plan, you have to remember that the components within may vary from one organization to another. Some writing processes may even be different, like how other companies may use a spreadsheet while others may prefer charts. Regardless of how the document is formatted, there are still a couple elements that your document has to have in order for it to be effective. These element will be listed and discussed in more detail down below.
1. Core skills to master
Leaders may have different responsibilities when it comes to the specific role that was given to them. It can include running meetings, providing feedback, sharing and providing information in front of an audience and decision making. The very first thing that you need to do when writing a leadership development plan is to identify the skills that are aligned with the task that was assigned to you. If by any chance you know someone the the workplace who possess those skills, then you can try asking them if you can practice with them in the meantime. If not, them you can looks for other resources to help you build these skills.
2. Experience gaps to close
In addition to technical and practical skills, there might also be strategic responsibilities that a leader might face when given the opportunity. Like, but not limited to starting a new project, working on a project that is not going well, managing other ventures, and operating a business in times of crisis.
3. New relationships to build
As a leader, you need to be able to know how to interact with other different entities on a regular basis. You can already experience this with individuals within your organization like department heads, front-line employees, as well as managers with varying degrees of skill. While there are also others that are from outside of your organization ranging from clients to suppliers and even board members from other businesses. When trying to develop a leadership development plan, you have to be able to identify these people and their statuses, and try to gauge which of them would you like to establish a business relationship with.
4. Delegation of tasks
Effective leaders should know how to balance their time between day-to-day tasks and long-term commitments. They should be able to know when and where to focus on things that are mostly aligned with their own expertise. As well as delegate tasks that they may think to be more efficient when worked n other members of the group.
5. Key action items that need to be completed
The specifics of a leadership development plan should also include the strengths and the areas that need to be improved. For each component that you want to improve, try to include an action item, the timeframe in which you want the task to be complete and he costs of the resources that you expect to be consumed. Action items can range from meetings with your mentors or managers, reading external resources on leadership, completing a leadership assessment, and identifying training and educational opportunities.
6. Critical indicators of success
Most of the time, leaders are not evaluated by their own success alone, but also the success of their team. Your leadership development plan should be able to list the indicators for the success of your business, for the leader and for the team. Your indicators of success can include the following;
- Improving the quality of work
- Improving teamwork and morale
- Increasing delegation of responsibility
- Strategic planning and preparation
- Continuous learning for you and your team
- Recognizing the contributions of the team
FAQs
What are the five components of a leadership development plan?
- Coaching
- Accountability
- Change Management
- Influence and Negotiation
- Communication
What are the 7 leadership skills?
- Willingness to listen
- Perseverance
- Honesty
- Selflessness
- Decisiveness
- Trust
- Integrity
What are the five SMART objectives?
- Specific
- Measurable
- Achievable
- Realistic
- Timed
A leadership development plan works best when operated as a live document. It should be something that you update and visit on a regular basis to make sure that you are working on the different areas of improvement that you have highlighted.
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