Effective Leadership & Management. What are we waiting for?

6 October 2011

There's much talk about Leadership and Management, particularly among those who want to lead the way out of the recession, but precious little investment in the people expected to deliver.

Effective management training is not an optional extra, but an essential part of any organsisation's success. Leaving it to chance is risking the careers and performance of the individuals concerned, as well their teams and the organsisations they work for.

Take a look at your emerging and existing managers. How would you rate their ability to:

Drive and managing change?

Make difficult decisions?

Execute organisation strategy?

If that thought’s making you feel uncomfortable, then you are not alone.  Recent research among Leadership / HR Professionals by CiPD show that only 38% rate their organisations' leadership development programmes as highly effective.

So, what are the rest of us doing?

From my experience with managers every day, I can tell you this: Managers are overwhelmingly

• Frustrated with their workload
• Feeling unsupported by their colleagues
• Hesitant to tackle under-performance in the team for fear of doing the wrong thing
• Uncertain about the future
• Aware that they are probably dealing badly with the pressure, but not sure what to do about it
• Nervous that the next crisis might bring everything crashing down
• Reluctant to start new projects or new ways of working, knowing the resistance that will come from the team.

You will be able to add to this list (and please do). Those managers who show ability, courage and optimism these days are a rare and welcome beast and surely those most likely to succeed, for themselves and their businesses, in the year ahead.

Forget what you’ve heard about the complexities of management training. Good management is a simple combination of skills and confidence, and as long as we deprive our managers of both, we will continue to see lacklustre growth, poor customer service and a demotivated workforce.

The same CiPD research shows:   Leaders themselves in both the UK and global samples identified formal workshops as the single most effective development method. The UK is lagging behind in online and web-based training too, but currently showing an encouraging 37% take-up.

And guess what? The Rising Stars Management School is designed for busy emerging and existing managers; a neat combination of intensive monthly workshops and online activities, updates and peer support.

If you can spot the potential in your people, now is the time to retain, inspire and develop your most promising future leaders. Or you could take option 2 and watch the ambitious ones leave while you try to encourage some kind of performance in those who are left.