2 | How Will Management and Leadership Training Help My Company?
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The source also reported that highly qualified
individual contributors are an exception in these
classrooms. With today's fluid business realities,
official positions are less meaningful than
whatever roles the day brings - project leader,
initiator of a business process improvement, or
genius with the new product design to promote!
What qualities does an individual contributor
need to develop to lead effectively?
• The ability to see the mission clearly:
Conceptualizing and verbalizing project
goals and tying them back to larger company
strategies is a learned leadership skill.
• The capability to communicate that vision:
Face it, leaders have to play the role of coach
in introducing the project and at various
points along the path to completion. Ignoring
the emotional element and answering the
question, "What's in it for me?" for each team
member is often a fool's bet.
• An eagerness to delegate and mentor
others: You may be an individual contributor
and not a manager because you love
doing your own thing and don't relish the
idea of developing others. If so, you are
probably loathe to give up the reins out of
habit and preference. Leadership training
can help teach you how to perform the
all-important job of delegation when you
are wearing your leader hat. Plus, many
an individual contributor has made the
shift to management after discovering an
unexpected satisfaction in helping others
succeed.
• Effectiveness at group facilitation and
conflict resolution: Do you dilute ideas
until a consensus is reached or make a
choice among the best ideas? How do
you lead a group with vested interests
toward a decision they will support? How
do you ensure that there are no "losers" on
the team? These are among the greatest
challenges leaders face.
• A willingness to say, "The buck stops with
me:" Only when the team sees that you are
fully invested in the project to the point that
you take full responsibility for the outcome
will you earn their respect. This willingness
comes with the confidence gained from
performing the other leadership tasks well.
The mad genius in the office basement may not
need leadership skills. But the rest of us may
have some ideas to sell. Most often, we cannot
contribute to our organization as an island. Others
look to us to be experts on certain subjects, the
coordinator of team efforts, the champion of
an approach to a business problem, the person
who will take the reins on an important project
and see it through to completion. Leadership
opportunities and imperatives are present in
almost every professional role.
Management and leadership training programs
teach managers and individual contributors alike
to become comfortable with the leadership hat
through training the constructs of leadership
and human behavior and through modeling,
coaching, and practicing leadership skills in
a safe environment.
