2 | Organizational Benefits of Leadership Training
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• Strategy realization transpires over years;
will our next generation of leaders be ready
to take the reins when their superiors and
mentors retire?
Organizations invest in leadership training to
address many of these concerns. That's because
the format of a leadership program combines
classroom training, practice, and feedback loops
to boost critical skills such as decision making,
strategic planning, portfolio planning, ideation,
teamwork, and effective networking.
The networking perspective is important. In the
Harvard Business Review article "How Leaders
Create and Use Networks," Herminia Ibarra and
Mark Hunter describe how effective leaders learn
to employ three kinds of networks for growth and
support purposes:
• Operational – getting work done efficiently
with a focus on building strong working
relationships
• Personal – enhancing personal and
professional development by reaching out
to contacts who can make referrals
• Strategic – figuring out future priorities and
getting stakeholder support for them by
creating inside-outside links
The strategic network is the one that provides the
relationships and information sources to hone
ideas and build coalitions of support, and this
is the most difficult for people to build. Many
leaders need help to properly transition their
skill set from being functionally oriented to being
politically savvy and able to build and leverage
stakeholder support from within and outside the
organization.
Leadership skills are not just meant for the senior
team. Projects are the means for driving change in
an organization. Project managers and sponsors
must be excellent communicators, influencers,
and change agents. They are responsible for
maintaining the vision of success and must
convince a team to adopt this vision over their
own interests. Project managers and sponsors
use their leadership skills to keep their projects in
sync with organizational priorities, build coalitions
of support for the project, and create high-
performing teams.
Business relationship management (BRM) is a
particular field of study under the leadership
training umbrella that will help your organization
deliver on its value proposition. The Business
Relationship Body of Knowledge includes
competencies such as:
• Business transition management and the
conditions for successful change programs
that minimize "value leakage"
• Portfolio management disciplines and
techniques to realize business value
• Aligning services and service levels with
business needs
• Communicating effectively and persuasively
The business relationship managers within an
organization help to ensure strategy execution
and organizational capability.
Building leadership competencies through
effective leadership or BRM training programs
is the kind of investment every organization with
a compelling mission, and need for operational
excellence, should strongly consider.
