How to Prioritize Leadership Development

Ask any individual in a position of leadership, and most of them will tell you that leadership development is important. Many smaller organizations don't invest in leadership development, either due to budgetary restrictions or perceived lack of expertise.

How to make leadership development a priority

But how do you make it a priority, especially in smaller or flatter organizations?

Short Answer

The short answer is that you have to make time for it.

You have to talk about it all the time.

You have to build it into your schedule.

Long Answer

The longer answer is this:

Often we create our own blocks for leader development.

As a current or aspiring leader, you need to be honest with yourself about what it means to be a great leader.

You need a formal way of measuring what good leadership is so you can manage against that, rather than your own self-defined concept.

It can be scary to put a formal process into place because you have to look in the mirror and be very honest with yourself.

You have to develop a very high level of transparent self-awareness.

You have to acknowledge that while you may be a good leader, there’s still some work to be done to be a great leader.

You have to admit that development is a lifetime process, not a single event.

You have to realize that your emotions (yes you have them) are always in play with every decision you make.

Creating self-awareness about your own feelings about personal development will play a key part in rolling out a leadership development program in your organization.

Making Leadership Development a Topic of Discussion

Here are two simple ideas for annual events to create energy around leadership development discussions:

Annual exec offsite

Every year you can host an executive offsite.

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