Leadership Training Provides Important Benefits

If you've ever worked in an organization that provides no leadership training you already know what a challenge that is. Leadership training prepares front line leaders for providing the kind of high performance leadership needed to solve problems and achieve their goals. Here are some quick articles I found that point out additional benefits to training.

Invest in Experiences
From FastCompany: Science explains why it provides more happiness to spend money on experiences rather than things.

In experiences we share with other people, collaborate, feel, and learn. The best training provides that as well.

Employee Training Is Worth The Investment
Many of the benefits of training include: improving retention, helping in recruiting, adding flexibility and efficiency, helps in job transfer. I would add that it provides the growth we each need to move forward toward achieving our goals.

How Employee Training Benefits Everyone
More benefits are identified here plus the eye-opening statement that training helps improve flexibility and efficiency up to 230%. Sound good? How is your organization doing at investing in training? What are you doing personally to add to your leadership training?

What additional benefits can you think of?

I've also seen the positive team building effects that leadership training supplies. Leaders who learn how to best build their own teams tend to transfer those skills to their cross-functional relationships as well, strengthening the whole organization. Leadership training can also remove much of the anxiety that new leaders feel over attempting skills they've not yet fully developed. Moving from a job where you were one of the best to a completely new set of skills can be unnerving! Why not prepare leaders with the proper training to help them turn into high performance leaders?

I'm in the business of leadership training and here's my pitch. If you are in the market for leadership training please give Front Range Leadership a look. If you're curious and want more information (and if you're ready to bring us in right away!) contact me here:

doug@frontrangeleadership.com

Front Range Leadership delivers fast, affordable leadership training. We can schedule one-day workshops at your location. We can even provide the leadership training that you need through webinars, teleclasses and teleconference coaching. Contact me today to start the conversation.

Supervising for Success - a great way to get supervisors off to a great start, or to adjust some rough areas.

Communicating for Results - a workshop dedicated to developing deeper conversations, more productive meetings, and more influential presentations.

Building Your Team - identifying the keys to your team's success and learning the tools that can help you collaborate on that success.

Solving Problems - Creating the collaborative space for success so that project teams, in-tact teams, and organizations can solve the problems that trouble them.

Achieving your goals - putting in place the processes, habits, and tools you need as a front line leader to achieve your goals.

My strongest recommendation is to bring in these one-day workshops to your organization. All we need is a conference room and 5 to 15 of your front line supervisors. We offer special deals for multiple sessions and our focus is in the Front Range area where less travel means better rates for your company.

Who benefits the most? Supervisors in retail, insurance and service businesses.

Contact us today and prepare your leaders for success,

-- Douglas Brent Smith
doug@frontrangeleadership.com

Front Range Leadership, LLC | Longmont, CO

Comments

Brace Yourself On The Edge

Do you pride yourself in being cutting edge? Do you try new techniques, stay creative, build innovation instead of comfort? Good for you. And if you said no, allow me to encourage you to push the edge a bit more. Get out of your comfort zone. The really big goals makes us just bit uncomfortable. We might even sweat. Push the edge, even knowing that sometimes when you push the edge you get pushed back. People might object to the radical new approach. They might take exception to your changes. Push the edge anyway. Leading often means going where no one else has gone. All the way to the edge. Pack a lunch, it could take a while, but do stay with it. -- Doug Smith

Strategic and Communication Skills

Supervisors often bring strong technical skills to the job. When they have worked in technical jobs prior to becoming a supervisor, they were often the best at what they do. They know the ground level part of their business well enough to solve problems and deal with day to day issues. Leading is all that and more. High performance leadership requires attention to detail AND a constant view of the big picture: where is your team, your market, and your customer base headed? What does the future hold? Strong supervisors learn to add strategic and communication skills to their technical ability. What are you doing today to develop your sense of the big picture? -- Douglas Brent Smith

Do Your Best With Time

Here's another guest entry from my good friend and fraternity brother David Spiegel. If you know anything about the East Coast you'll get a sense for how his day went. If you ever struggle with managing time, some of this may sound familiar. As Dave says, we can't really manage time -- it's what we do with it that matters. Now, let's hear what Dave has to share: In a week where I have dedicated myself to regaining control over my time , I have come to realize that I am trying to accomplish something impossible. Time is time. Every day has exactly 1440 minutes to it and no matter what we do,we can not create any more of it. So instead of creating more time we spend our energy trying to make better use of those precious minutes each day.We attempt to manage time. Well guess what. We have no control over time. Time itself can not be managed. We can not speed it up or slow it down. Do you know why a watched pot never boils? It's a time thing...

Win The Game

It would be nice to win the game. But, do you ever feel like you're in a game that keeps shifting the rules and making it easy to make progress but impossible to win? You've probably noticed lots of game elements creeping into service. Points, incentives, expiring coupons followed by new expiring coupons, leader-boards...on an on a relentless attack on service comes from playing a game designed -- you guessed it -- to maximize profit. If the customer is happy, fine, but the point is to make money. Not to put too fine a point on it but that's a lousy point. What if there could be something better? What if customer service excellence became playing a game where the customer always wins and that makes you happy? You don't have to. "give away the store" to achieve a winning game for all of the players. Just stop stacking the rules against customers and watch how much more they will want to do business with you. -- doug smith

Call Fewer Meetings

Do you have too many meetings? Many leaders do. Staff meetings, committee meetings, team meetings, project meetings, all-company meetings...the list goes on. Most of us can think of many meetings that were simply wastes of our time. Time is too important to waste is bad meetings. Do the people in your meeting want to be there? If not, maybe it's not a meeting that you need. Maybe there's another way to communicate your message. Maybe the work that is waiting is too important to wait. We can like the feeling of having a meeting. It feels like we're doing something. But if we're not -- if we are delaying real work, maybe we don't need that meeting after all. What scheduled meeting could you eliminate this week? Wouldn't it be nice to have that time to be...well, happy and more productive? -- Doug Smithy

What You Do

Do your team members know what you do as a leader? It's a serious question. I've known leaders who seem to nearly never venture outside of their office, and others who are seldom there. What is it that you do? Answer customer questions? Resolve team conflicts? Make your own boss happy? Develop new ideas? Fill out reports? Answer emails? It's risky to take for granted that your team members know what you do. But, they sure want to! I'd encourage you to conduct daily individual conversations so that no matter what else you do, much of what you do is communicate with the team. Will that take time? Sure. Is it worth it? Absolutely. Are you giving your team members enough of your time? Is what you do vital to your team's success? -- Douglas Brent Smith

Take Charge

Is it possible to be a centered, highly participative and collaborative leader while also acting with a take charge sense of focus? It may not be easy, but I do believe it's possible. My favorite leaders have all been collaborative. They operate with respect and cooperative appreciation. And, when necessary they take charge. High performance leaders get things done. Usually, that means with the help of other people. Relationships are essential. And, results matter, too. Taking on a fair share of the unglamorous work shows a team that the leader is willing and able to work side-by-side. This can be profoundly motivating. Leaders who roll-up-their-sleeves and help with the messy side of the work show that their passion is authentic. Centered leaders take charge when the need arises. The need arises constantly. Get the views of others. Collaborate. Listen, rather than command. And when the moment calls for it, show your authentic passion for the work by taking charge when thin...

Take the Uncertainty Out of a Goal

Do you have a goal that seems stuck because you don't know what to do next? What a sinking feeling it is when a goal slowly fades away for lack of action. Here's what works better for me: Clarify your goal - make sure there are these three components: an action verb, the result that you want, and the time for the deadline. They don't need to be complicated. The simpler the better. Just keep the ART in them. Set an aggressive action plan and stick to it. Act relentlessly on your plan every day. Those three things will make a pronounced difference in your goals. Take the uncertainty out of a goal by working on it everyday. You'll be glad that you did. -- Douglas Brent Smith Front Range Leadership: How to achieve your goals doug smith training: developing creativity

Letting Go

Are you working hard on any goals that you shouldn't be? Are some things getting in the way of your success? It's easy to accumulate a full schedule of meetings and tasks surrounding goals that were not ours to begin with but now consume all of our time. Bold leaders weed out those types of goals. Strong leaders focus on the goals that they align with their mission. High performance leaders let go of goals that don't belong. When we let go of the wrong goals it makes room for the right ones. Maybe that goal made sense at one time. Maybe it was thrust to you from someone else who meant well but who was not fully away of your mission or the list of goals you were already working on. Maybe the goal just doesn't belong to you. What goal should you let go of today? -- Douglas Brent Smith http://frontrangeleadership.com

Start With Decisions

Do you share leadership? The most powerful teams share leadership responsibilities AND attitude. When you develop a team where people feel empowered to take charge, take responsibility, and take ownership you then no longer need to do all the difficult work. Delegation becomes easier. Collaboration feels more natural. Start with decisions. It's fast and easy as a leader to make all of the big decisions, but when you include your team in the conversations it takes to gain mutually shared understandings and collaborative decisions, you no longer have to "sell" your decisions --- people simply know what you as a team have decided and act accordingly. No passive aggressive resistance, no passengers on your team "bus" -- just fully engaged team members. Start with collaborative decisions. The rest will be much easier. -- Doug Smith

High Performance Leadership

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