The Workplace Readiness Gap: Why Training Managers is the Best ROI You Can Get

This article first appeared in The Aligned Leader by Archbright. Subscribe to receive fresh leadership insights, HR strategies, and workplace trends every other week, before they're published on our blog. Follow the newsletter on LinkedIn →  

So far in this three-part series, we’ve focused on how to support early- and mid-career employees. For this final installment of the Workplace Readiness Gap, I’m looking at how we invest in leadership.

Many Managers Are Promoted Without Formal Leadership Training

It’s great to see employees who work their way up through an organization to join the leadership team. There’s no replacement for the level of institutional knowledge they bring to the table, but often, formal leadership training hasn’t been part of their journey. Even if an employee took management courses as part of a degree, it may have been years since they learned those skills, and they may be a little rusty.

Leaders are not only steering strategy, but they’re also spokespeople for your organization and key drivers of employee retention. Investing in additional skill-building can reduce risk, reinforce the values important to your organization, and help a strong individual contributor become the leader you need them to be.

Ways to Build Stronger Leaders

There are several ways to strengthen your team’s leadership skills, and the best approach for your organization will likely involve a combination of them. Create a balance that feels right for each team member and remember that an investment into your leaders extends to the employees they lead every day.

Courses and Skills-Based Training

At Archbright, we’ve been offering training courses to our members and the public in management, leadership skills, human resources, and more for over 30 years. Management Fundamentals is one of our staple offerings, a three-day bootcamp covering key areas leaders need to understand to manage effectively. Many of our members have a policy requiring new managers take the course, helping create a common foundation of skills across their leadership teams.

For more seasoned managers, skills-based refresher courses can help strengthen specific areas or address issues that may have been coming up within their teams. Archbright offers courses like The Art of Difficult Conversations and Writing and Delivering Performance Reviews that focus on these practical leadership skills.

Whether you find courses through Archbright or another provider, including leadership training in your annual budget can deliver a strong return through better-equipped managers and a more engaged organization.

Leadership Retreats

Taking an annual or semi-annual retreat together with your senior leadership team is an excellent way to develop strategy, analyze outputs, and create the larger structures businesses need to thrive. Day-to-day meetings and responsibilities can keep us too busy to spend meaningful time on the big picture. Leadership retreats create dedicated space to this important part of the job.

If you need inspiration on how to plan a leadership retreat, this Archbright blog is a great resource.

Networking

There are thousands of opportunities every week to network, attend webinars and events, or participate in industry conferences. Encouraging your leadership team to seek out opportunities that expand their networks can expose your organization to new ideas and connections, as well as potential customers, collaborators, and future employees.

Executive Coaching

Providing leaders with the opportunity to meet one-on-one with an executive coach can help them identify blind spots, strengthen decision-making, and build confidence as they take on greater leadership responsibilities. For new managers in particular, executive coaches can also provide a valuable sounding board as they grow into the role.

Create Mentorship Opportunities

Sometimes investing in your leaders means giving them the opportunity to help develop the next generation of leaders. Providing the space and opportunity for your executive leaders to mentor more junior staff shows that you value their knowledge while simultaneously building your organization’s future leadership bench.

Acknowledging the Role of Wellness in Leader Resilience

I’d be remiss to suggest adding activities, courses, and coaching to your leadership team’s plate without also acknowledging the very real issue of burnout. This is a crisis impacting organizations across all sizes and industries, with 71% of middle managers report feeling burned out.

From calendars filled with back-to-back meetings to work-life imbalance that keeps leaders feeling like they are asking already-stressed leaders to take on mentoring, training, or skill-building outside of a packed schedule may lead to more panic than excitement.

Support your team first by making sure you level-load when asking them to take on a new project or training. Connect their work to the “why” when assigning new projects or asking for discretionary effort. Don’t assume your leaders automatically understand the value of training, networking, or time away to strategize. Show them how these new projects fit into the larger picture and ask what you can do to help make room for them.

What Have You Done Lately to Invest in Your Leadership Team?

To close, take a moment to consider these questions about how your organization is investing in its leaders and addressing workplace readiness gaps:

1. Do all your managers receive a consistent foundation of managerial training?

2. How are leaders continuing to build new skills once they become managers?

3. Does your team take dedicated time away, through a retreat or off-site, to strategize for the year?

4. Does your organization have clear leadership values, and are those values communicated to managers?

Thank you for subscribing to The Aligned Leader. My hope is that each issue offers practical insights you can apply with your team right away.

If you found this article valuable, I'd be grateful if you'd share it with a colleague who might benefit from it as well.