According to a Gallup report, 55% of managers and employees feel disconnected or disengaged in their workplace. This compels them to actively look for new job opportunities.
The same report shows that 34% of leaders feel the same, not being motivated enough to help achieve their company’s goals.
This leads us to the real need for leadership development programs.
Read more: Top Requirements for any Successful Business Customer Engagement
Leadership development in the digital age is definitely undergoing great changes, as business models, processes, and products are constantly changing due to ever-evolving technology.
So, what can you do to fully prepare the leaders in your organization for the future and help them seize rewarding opportunities to achieve their career goals and company objectives?
The following steps will help you not only create an effective leadership development program, but also ensure sustainable business growth in the digital age. Take a look.
Table of Contents
Keys to Leadership Development in the Digital Age
Outline the Necessary Leadership Skills in Your Organization
To begin with, you need to draw an outline of all the necessary skills for leadership positions in your organization. These include communication skills, creativity, delegation, responsibility, mentoring, positive reinforcement, vision, problem-solving ability, critical thinking, and many more. They will help you identify your leaders and help them master their skills.
Let’s take change management, for example. Your leaders need to be able to identify areas for change, to be flexible with change, to motivate and inspire your entire workforce to embrace any kind of change and to set all the standards for implementing changes.
This is only one of many examples showing that a leader must be able to fully understand how they can contribute to a company’s goals. Change management can be used as a starting point for outlining and developing leadership skills.
Keep Pace with Technological Innovations
Constant technological advances keep transforming business models, so you need to make sure you keep up with all the innovations. You need to replace your traditional business model with a digital one to be able to reinvent your business and gain a competitive edge. That way, your leadership development programs, empowered by technology, will yield more positive results.
This will help place your organization in a more agile position, and your leaders will be able to focus more on leveraging technology to build powerful business and customer relationships.
Also Read: Top Requirements for any Successful Business Customer Engagement
Build Trust and Relationships
Employees who trust their leaders tend to work harder and not look for other career opportunities outside their company. This is why building trust and meaningful relationships is a crucial step for leaders.
Teach your leaders to establish trust by being honest, accountable, supportive, committed, and consistent. Teach them that trust is not earned, but given.
When team members trust their leader, they are more committed to team goals. They communicate better and they become more creative and productive. All of this leads to operational efficiency and an obstacle-free path to growth and success.
Collaborate with Virtual Teams
Working with virtual or remote teams is one of the signs of the digital transformation of a business. Just imagine how many business connections you can forge if you’re not limited by geography.
The digital age makes time and space completely irrelevant when it comes to doing business, as you can connect with people from all over the world and even find life-long business partners. That’s why most businesses today have become fully globalized.
See more: How To Control The Work Of Employees At A Virtual Work?
If your leaders collaborate effectively with virtual teams, they are increasing the chances of growing your business sales and ROI much easier and faster.
That’s why you should encourage them to hire and work with remote teams, as well as collaborate with remote business partners, if you have any. Not only will they become better leaders that way, they will also be better prepared for succession.
Leverage Business Analytics for Data-Driven Decision-Making
Every single leadership position requires a lot of data-driven decision-making. This means that you need to ensure that your leaders always harness the full power of business analytics so that they can make smart business decisions.
The digital age practically commands the use of data. Without proper data, you simply cannot know whether what you’re doing is right.
To consistently improve your business, your leaders must always rely on analytics and back up their every decision with data. Moreover, they must be able to derive valuable insights from all the data, so that they can effectively manage teams and create competitive advantages.
Base Strategic Business Thinking on Employee Training
Training employees for leadership positions in an organization is a proven means to provide them with the most crucial competitive advantage – the ability to think strategically.
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Use employee training software to streamline employee training and deliver it effectively and efficiently. Enable your leaders to learn anytime and from anywhere.
The ability to learn and grow constantly is the greatest benefit you can provide to your employees. Make sure you utilize LMS software as well for this purpose so that you can effectively manage all the training and keep track of your learners’ progress.
Prepare Your Leaders Now For the Future!
Leadership development in the digital age is different from what it used to be. You need to take a different approach to create present-day leaders in your organization. To do that, you need to outline the necessary leadership skills first, which will help you identify your future leaders and hone their skills.
Along with that, you need to keep pace with technological advances, which will give you a competitive edge and help remote teams work together.
Your leaders should know how to collaborate effectively with virtual teams, as well as how to build trust and strong relationships within your workforce.
They need to learn to make decisions based on data and use business analytics to derive valuable insights for future improvement and sustainable business growth.
Know more: Ways to grow your online business efficiently
Your best bet for creating leaders with a capacity for strategic thinking is employee training software or an LMS software. They play a huge role in the learning and development (L&D) of potential leaders by enhancing the capabilities necessary for long-term success.
Author Bio:
Kamy Anderson is an ed-tech enthusiast with a passion for writing on emerging technologies in the areas of corporate training and education. He is an expert in learning management system & eLearning authoring tools – currently associated with ProProfs Training Maker.
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