Our white paper explores what research suggests are the direct benefits of leadership development (i.e., program-specific outcomes) and the indirect benefits of development, including increased employee engagement and attractiveness to potential employees. It outlines 4 key leadership development benefits that have emerged from both our own and other research, noting that investments in leadership development:

1. Facilitate organizational alignment,
2. Enhance the organization’s change readiness,
3. Promote equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI), and
4. Strengthen leadership pipelines.

Creating Competitive Leadership Advantage

When implemented effectively and comprehensively, leadership development has the potential to grow individuals and transform an entire organization from being one that merely meets its objectives into one that excels.

That’s why we say that one of the key benefits of leadership development is also simply that it creates competitive leadership advantage. And having a competitive leadership advantage not only raises the organization’s level of leadership capacity, developing a healthy leadership pipeline for the future, but also enables organizational agility, which is essential in today’s era of constant disruption.

One of the most critical drivers of organizational success in adapting to change is effective leadership at all levels — not just at the top.

To create the engagement and productivity required for this level of performance, leaders need to inspire others, drive innovation, collaborate across boundaries, and create an environment of psychological safety and inclusion. But these leadership skills don’t simply emerge and spread throughout the organization on their own. It takes focused effort and intentional strategy to optimize the leadership talent organizations need today and in the future.

Building these needed skills, from the top to the bottom of your organization, can feel like an impossible task. How can you possibly get quality development into the hands of all employees to fully leverage the benefits of leadership development?

The answer is by implementing a leadership development initiative that can be scaled. A scalable leadership development program is one that can easily be adapted and executed across an organization, regardless of its size or structure. A scalable development program unlocks leadership development’s benefits and creates significant competitive leadership advantage.

Download our white paper today to learn the many benefits of leadership development and how to scale it to start building a stronger talent pipeline at your organization.

Download White Paper

The post Creating Competitive Leadership Advantage: 4 Ways That Scaling Development Powers Engagement, Retention & ROI appeared first on CCL.

HR, Talent, and L&D teams are expected to provide meaningful, accessible development to their organizations, but that can be challenging in today’s ever-shifting landscape. Mergers and acquisitions lead to new, flatter org charts and expectations of doing more with less. Global supply chain issues, political instability, rising energy costs, a tight labor market, return-to-office mandates, and hybrid work environments all mean that organizations need flexible, agile leaders.

These changes all call for increased collaboration, connection, and coordination, and there’s never been a greater need for effective leadership at scale.

The optimal way to achieve these critical outcomes and widespread alignment across the enterprise is by scaling leadership development opportunities across the entire organization.

But how do you support developing leadership at scale, when your workforce is huge, staff levels are constantly shifting, resources are limited, and people are struggling to keep up with day-to-day challenges? HR and L&D professionals need tools for scaling leadership, along with strategic recommendations to help them deliver evidence-based training content and transformational development experiences across the enterprise.

Leadership Development at Scale: 3 Keys

As our white paper outlines, when organizations are looking to scale leadership development as widely but effectively as possible, it’s essential to focus on these 3 principles.

1. Plan your leadership strategy.

Devise a leadership approach at the outset. Organizations don’t go to market without a sales or operations strategy. Likewise, there should be hesitance about going to market without a leadership strategy.

Think through how different levels of your organization are affected by culture shifts that require new goals and strategies, and view leadership as a lever to execute the business strategy and drive organizational performance. Organizations that are most effective at creating new leadership capabilities focus on linking talent development to business results.

2. Provide access to relevant content.

Align the training content you offer to support the overall leadership development process. Simply providing access to hours of content, especially if that content isn’t closely aligned with your organizational priorities, won’t be very beneficial to your employees. Scaling leadership development requires a significant commitment across the organization. It’s not a program, but rather a sweeping initiative that requires a whole-systems view.

Large-scale change requires that you create the right architecture to support your learning and development objectives for leaders at every level. To maximize success, focus on the skills, behaviors, and practices needed by individual leaders and on the organizational leadership capabilities needed to support the business strategy.

3. Leverage internal and external talent.

Consider whether, and how, your internal team could use the support of an external partner. Scaling leadership development effectively requires readiness, in terms of capacity and capability, and many in-house HR and L&D teams aren’t equipped to develop hundreds or even thousands of leaders at once. You may not have access to the tools or infrastructure required to provide meaningful leadership development that’s scalable (to provide access to all talent) and customizable (to align development with your KPIs).

At the same time, HR and talent leaders have an increasingly important role in partnering with their C-suites on organizational strategy and advocating for employee needs. Partnering with an external provider allows internal teams to focus on providing high-value enterprise support.

When internal capability doesn’t align with delivery need, or when your in-house team needs to place its focus elsewhere, combine insourcing with outsourcing strategically. Integrate your business leaders and internal facilitators to champion the initiatives, increase alignment, and generate buy-in, and lean on trusted external providers for proven training content and solutions.

Scaling Leadership Development Enables Collective Potential

Imagine the impact that will result in your organization if there is shared leadership vision, language, and behaviors — all linked directly to critical business needs.

Scaling leadership development is the optimal way to create new capabilities across the enterprise, and to communicate to every member of your organization that they are valued and supported.

Flexible development options can help you broaden access to learning for every member of your organization, across leader levels, and through every stage of their career journeys. And with the right partner and solution, you can meet the increased demand for training and development, regardless of the bandwidth of your L&D or HR team.

The 3 steps for scaling leadership development that are outlined in this paper will help you to more quickly achieve concrete business results, improve retention and engagement, and drive an organizational culture of learning and growth.

Download White Paper

The post Future-Proof Your Organization by Scaling Leadership Development appeared first on CCL.

What Are “Soft Skills” and Why Are They Important for Leaders?

“Soft skills” is a term often used to describe the essential leadership qualities needed to form strong connections with others — like empathy, compassion, and authenticity.

With the continued rise of hybrid workforce models, as well as widespread political and economic uncertainty, soft skill development is more critical now than ever for leaders. Interpersonal relationship-building and effective virtual communication are both required to build high-performing, geographically dispersed teams.

At CCL, we’ve found that organizations and leaders who prioritize soft skill development foster cultures that are adaptive, inclusive, and impactful. By cultivating their own soft skills, modeling them for others, and creating development opportunities for team members, leaders are not only able to build more effective teams, they’re also better able to retain, engage, and motivate employees.

Soft skills are essential for people managers, and leaders at all levels benefit from specific, targeted soft skill development to maximize success. Read on for the essential skills needed to drive engagement and performance across the organization.

Essential Leadership Soft Skills for Every Leader Level

Regardless of a leader’s role in the organizational chart, the soft skills required for holding coaching conversations are essential. Why? Because they lay the foundation for your organization to build a common leadership language. This shared language fosters and implements a coaching culture, where employees across the organization feel comfortable giving and receiving candid feedback, and encouraging each other’s growth.

When all of your employees master the following 4 skills, your organization is well-equipped for more tailored development opportunities:

1. Listening to understand
2. Asking powerful questions
3. Challenging and supporting
4. Establishing accountability

The good news is, you already have the resources within your organization to instill these soft skills and create a coaching culture. Learn more about what it takes to coach people effectively.

Leading Yourself: Soft Skills for Individuals

Even without direct reports, individual contributors — and by extension, their organizations — benefit greatly from soft skill development. It might seem slightly surprising, but individual contributors need leadership development, too. Many are in customer-facing roles or bring their expertise to cross-functional projects. They’re also often responsible for implementing new technologies and business processes, which drive innovation. For all these reasons, they must be able to communicate simply and clearly, collaborate with others, and foster connections with other team members so that shared goals and objectives can be met.

Our research has found that the following 4 core leadership skills are always needed. These are the most essential soft skills for everyone, regardless of leader level or industry:

• Self-awareness 
• Communication
• Influence
• Learning agility

Leading Others: Soft Skills for Frontline Managers

In many organizations, frontline managers represent almost 40% of the population of leaders — yet unfortunately, they’re not always prepared to lead. After transitioning from an individual contributor role into a leader of others, many first-time managers find they struggle with leading projects and people effectively, and don’t realize how influential they are, or could become, with targeted soft skill development.

When employees are leading others, especially for the first time, developing these soft skills can enhance their leadership effectiveness:

• Political savvy
• Motivating others

Provide your first-time leaders with frontline leadership skills training and you’ll develop leaders — not just bosses.

Leading Teams: Soft Skills for Mid-Level Managers

Often, employees step into middle management roles at a time in their lives when demands from work, family, and community are higher than ever. And most haven’t yet developed the leadership resilience needed to successfully handle multiple stressors. Mid-level leaders must also navigate organizational politics, and often feel pressure coming from both above and below them in the hierarchy.

Learning the following soft skills will help managers who are leading from the middle:

• Thinking and acting systemically
• Resilience

Learn more about the leadership skills that managers in the middle need to advance.

Leading the Function: Soft Skills for Senior Leaders

Like frontline managers who were promoted into higher leadership roles after succeeding as individual contributors, senior leaders are often promoted to head entire business functions after effectively leading a specific area or team. However, in their new senior roles, they often find the challenges are not just greater in number, but also different and more complex.

Soft skill development for senior leaders is often overlooked because busy executives have limited time for personal goal-setting and self-reflection. But investing in developing the following skills will not only enhance a senior leader’s capacity for strategic thinking and planning, but also have a positive impact on the bottom line of the business:

• Being visionary
• Driving results
• Creating engagement
• Identifying innovation opportunities
• Leading globally

When senior leaders develop the soft leadership skills they need to succeed at this level, they are better able to collaborate across boundaries, form important alliances, drive business results, and meet organization-wide goals. Learn more about the senior leadership skills needed to excel.

Leading the Enterprise: Soft Skills for Executives

At CCL, our research team has identified 4 keys for reaching the C-Suite: experience, personal readiness, network readiness, and relationship readiness. Success in these high-pressure, big-picture roles leading the enterprise requires several critical soft skills — which aren’t always evident on a resume:

• Creating and articulating a vision
• Creating strategic alignment
• Developing a leadership and talent strategy aligned with business strategy
• Leading the culture
• Establishing a strong executive image
• Creating a culture of innovation
• Catalyzing change

Methods for Soft Skill Development

Perhaps you’re a team manager or an HR or talent leader looking to upskill team members, or you work at an educational institution seeking to include soft skills training and a leadership development curriculum alongside other certifications. The approach to developing leadership soft skills that will best suit your organization can take many shapes, such as the following 6 options.

5 Ways to Develop Soft Skills for Leaders

1. Personalized, in-person leader development

Consider in-person leadership programs that specifically tailor soft skill development according to the challenges faced and competencies needed at that individual’s leader level.

2. Online leadership development courses

Look for courses that are engaging, dynamic, and collaborative. The benefits of online training are expansive, and courses are typically available in a variety of virtual delivery formats, ranging from live online programs to self-paced learning.

3. Leadership development workshop kits

All-inclusive, pre-packaged workshop kits can be used to upskill employees with a scalable, modular leadership development plan, and facilitate targeted training for small groups.

4. Licensing leadership programs and solutions

As needed, you can supplement and maximize your internal leadership development by licensing specific programs or tools from a trusted provider, or even use a comprehensive solution like CCL Passport to enjoy access to a full library of research-based leadership content, curated into learning journeys, with access to programs, tools, and support to help you customize and scale soft skill development for leaders at every level.

5. Coaching for leaders at all levels

Support soft skill development and expand the potential of your people managers with leadership coaching.

Best Practices for Soft Skill Development

Regardless of the approach you take, start by defining the soft skills needed to foster your desired organizational culture.

If your gap areas are unclear, 360-degree assessments can help HR teams plan development and prioritize the soft skills employees need. These assessments are highly personalized, ensuring that strengths and opportunities for growth are addressed with targeted development.

Alongside soft skill development, take steps to strengthen your organization’s learning culture. While some skills come naturally to certain leaders, soft skills can be developed by anyone over time — especially when you have a coaching culture that reinforces candor and trust.

Finally, don’t overlook the importance of fostering empathy and an inclusive environment where all employees can experience psychological safety at work. Having the freedom to  practice new soft skills, make mistakes, share concerns, and be vulnerable with one another is especially important for leaders working in today’s hybrid work environment.

Use Soft Skill Development to Strengthen Your Workforce & Attract New Talent

Providing equitable access to development opportunities is no longer a “nice-to-have” perk. In today’s competitive talent economy, employees expect organizations to offer ample opportunities for them to learn and grow.

Soft skill development helps your organization stay competitive on 2 fronts. By upskilling your workforce with the tools they need to collaborate with one another, you can better prepare employees to navigate the increasingly complex challenges they face together. And by investing in the development of your leaders at every level, you are signaling that your company values the growth of its employees, enabling you to attract and retain more talent.

Building a workforce of confident, capable, collaborative, and empathetic employees through soft skill development will help grow your organization’s mission and its future.

Ready to Take the Next Step?

We have a number of leadership solutions to help you upskill your talent with soft skill development, in the format that’s best for your unique situation.

Frequently Asked Questions About Soft Skills in Leadership

The post The Leadership Soft Skills Needed to Succeed at Each Leader Level appeared first on CCL.

Our white paper explores what research suggests are the direct benefits of leadership development (i.e., program-specific outcomes) and the indirect benefits of development (including increased employee engagement, retention, and attractiveness to potential employees).

It outlines 4 key leadership development benefits that have emerged from both our own and other research, noting that investments in enterprise-wide development at scale can create competitive advantage for organizations by fostering better leadership:

1. Facilitate organizational alignment,
2. Enhance the organization’s change readiness,
3. Promote inclusion and belonging, and
4. Strengthen leadership pipelines.

Creating Competitive Advantage Through Leadership

When implemented effectively and comprehensively, leadership development has the potential to grow individuals and transform an entire organization from being one that merely meets its objectives into one that excels.

That’s why we say that one of the key benefits of leadership development, especially at scale, is also simply that it creates competitive leadership advantage. And having a competitive leadership advantage not only raises the organization’s level of leadership capacity, developing a healthy leadership pipeline for the future, but also enables organizational agility, which is essential in today’s era of constant disruption.

One of the most critical drivers of organizational success in adapting to change is effective leadership at all levels — not just at the top.

To create the engagement and productivity required for this level of performance, leaders need to inspire others, drive innovation, collaborate across boundaries, and create an environment of psychological safety and inclusion. But these leadership skills don’t simply emerge and spread throughout the organization on their own. It takes focused effort and intentional strategy to optimize the leadership talent organizations need today and in the future.

Building these needed skills, from the top to the bottom of your organization, can feel like an impossible task. How can you possibly get quality development into the hands of all employees to fully leverage the benefits of leadership development?

The answer is by implementing a leadership development initiative that can be scaled. A scalable leadership development program is one that can easily be adapted and executed across an organization, regardless of its size or structure. A scalable development program unlocks leadership development’s benefits and creates significant competitive leadership advantage.

Download our white paper today to learn the many benefits of leadership development and how to scale it to start building a stronger talent pipeline at your organization.

Download White Paper

The post How Leadership Development Benefits Organizations & Creates Competitive Advantage appeared first on CCL.

Most HR executives agree they need leaders who can think strategically, disrupt old-school business models, and create cultures that embrace change and lead in a challenging and complex world. But how much are they willing to invest in getting people ready? And what types of training and approaches to leadership development are most successful and effective?

To find out, we conducted research to benchmark typical levels of leadership development spending. It’s clear from the responses we received that HR executives believe investing in effective leadership development to build a strong pipeline of leaders is critical to the current and future success of their organizations.

Where are organizations investing right now in leadership development? Take our poll to see the latest results:

In our study, most respondents reported planning to make sustained, double-digit increases in their development budgets, year-over-year. What’s more, they said they’re investing equally across leader levels — from first-level supervisors to senior executives — and they’re investing even during economic downturns.

We compiled their responses to share the 5 factors HR executives told us they believe are critical to a successful leadership development strategy.

The Keys to Effective Leadership Development

5 Characteristics of an Effective Leadership Development Strategy

1. A blended delivery approach.

It’s time to say goodbye to the one-size-fits-all model to training.

The executives in our study reported that the most successful leadership development initiatives involve a blended approach that reflects the organization’s unique culture and business needs.

Respondents define “blended” broadly and think about it from 2 perspectives:

• Blending modalities, such as combining in-person delivery with online leadership training, gives leaders greater flexibility and choice in how they learn.
• Blending formal programs with informal, bite-sized learning, including webinars, on-demand tools, self-paced videos, leadership workshops, mentoring, etc., reinforces learning and makes it easier to accommodate and absorb.

To help leaders navigate these expanded development choices in a thoughtful and systematic way, organizations are providing guidance on what capabilities and leadership competencies are most important at each point in the typical career continuum.

As one Chief Talent Officer told us, “We let anybody take anything, and we have learning maps. So, if someone wants to become a people manager, then these are the things you should be learning in the next 60 days. Our belief is that if you tell the leader what they need to be successful, then it will be upon them to use resources. It places accountability on the learner.”

2. Broad and sustained support.

Often, new training offerings are announced with great fanfare, but quickly fade away and become the “flavor of the moment.”

There is no consistency, no sustained support, and no follow-through from month to month or year to year, which can drain people, send the wrong message, and undermine successful leadership development.

But increasingly, senior leaders see effective leadership development as a point of differentiation that helps them retain their people, bring their corporate strategy to life, and position their organizations to weather unpredictable disruptions in the marketplace and the economy … including, but not limited to, the challenges faced during the pandemic and its aftermath. Organizations that are focused on improving employee engagement and retention will want to pay attention to development opportunities.

As a result, HR executives are focused on building top-down, organization-wide support for learning across all levels — making it a part of each leader’s job and creating an overall culture of learning. And they’re starting at the top, by engaging senior executives in modeling effective leadership behaviors and in motivating and inspiring leaders to make development a priority. One company in our survey even reported they engage board members and senior executives as leadership development “instructors,” asking them to share their personal experiences and insights during an annual event.

A broad-based, comprehensive, all-access pass to proven leadership development training content and solutions can be very helpful to HR leaders in providing turnkey, effective leadership development that supports employees at all levels and scales across the organization.

3. A focus on workplace realities.

The leaders we surveyed say the most effective leadership development initiatives link learning to real-world challenges and opportunities. After all, growth most often occurs when on-the-job experiences are at the center of talent development.

Of course, organizations must do this while also recognizing the real struggles their teams face. Burned-out, stretched-thin managers don’t have much time or energy for learning & development — or even leading effectively — if their focus has been on survival. Helping employees manage their work-life conflicts was important even before the pandemic, and it continues to be critical.

As always, though, the most successful and effective leadership development initiatives also bring leadership theory to life. When leaders understand how their work supports the overarching success of the business and connect to the organization’s purpose, their learning becomes more relevant.

That’s especially true if workplace-linked development is reinforced over time with networking, peer learning, ample boss support, and coaching and mentoring, particularly for new leaders.

4. Interaction and engagement.

Today’s HR teams are pushing development well beyond static lectures, because with successful leadership development, learning is active, not passive.

As one senior HR leader told us, “Regardless of whether it’s through a screen or in person, it’s not going to be effective if you can’t stop and ask questions. Interaction is very important.”

So organizations are bringing learning to life with interactivity, gamification, Q&A sessions, and other techniques that keep learners interested and engaged. As a result, important ideas are more likely to “break through” and capture each leader’s attention, leading to effective leadership development and lasting change.

Experientials and simulations, for example, can make learning “stickier” and therefore more likely to produce lasting change. They can shift a leader’s mindset and open them up to new possibilities and to more effective ways of leading.

At CCL, our leadership programs have long been lauded for their research-based, hands-on learning opportunities, particularly when delivered in-person. But we’ve also found that online leadership development offers unexpected benefits when the program is deliberately designed to foster authentic connections and deliver vibrant, engaging experiences.

5. Use of tools and assessments.

Learning to lead is an intensely personal experience. That’s why it’s no surprise that our surveys found that HR teams are ensuring successful leadership development by providing specific, tailored guidance for each leader’s personal development journey using individualized leadership assessments.

To model this best practice, HR departments identify the leadership skills their organizations need for current and future success. And they use 360-degree feedback assessment data to benchmark competencies and help each leader become more self-aware, with an understanding of strengths and development needs.

This assessment-based perspective provides an important focal point for effective leadership development. Leaders have a clear understanding of what their organization needs, how their performance compares to their peers, and which improvements they need to make to support their organization’s success. They then can build a personalized development roadmap for their own leadership journey.

This is among the 360 degree feedback best practices for linking talent and business strategies, and the most savvy HR teams do this for effective leadership development.

Is Your Organization Investing in Effective Leadership Development?

In closing, given these 5 characteristics that emerged as key in a successful and effective leadership development strategy, consider your organization’s approach. How do your organization’s investments in leadership development to date stack up? Are you ready to invest in developing all your talent?

Ready to Take the Next Step?

We can help you determine a successful leadership development strategy and effective leadership development approach for your organization. Partner with us for customized leadership development, or take advantage of our leadership subscription, an all-access pass to our content, and bring our proven research, programs, and tools in-house to leaders at all levels of your organization.

The post 5 Characteristics of a Successful Leadership Development Strategy & Approach appeared first on CCL.

CCL Passport

CCL Passport provides research-backed content, including programs, digital courses, and tools. It covers more than 30 critical leadership topics and offers organizations the ability to roll out internal leadership development at scale, building employee leadership skills at all levels.

“It’s no longer enough to provide leadership development for only select employees,” CCL President and CEO Scott Bohannon said. “Making those experiences available to everyone creates more equitable workplaces, builds extensive talent pipelines, and contributes to a culture of engagement — all of which drive organizational performance and support employee retention. With Passport, organizations can make leadership a part of their cultural DNA and offer their team members transformative experiences.”

As HR leaders are being asked to do even more to accelerate employee development in a new era of hybrid and virtual workplaces, CCL Passport equips internal training and development professionals with the ability to create clarity and continuity. This will facilitate growth and reinforce a cohesive leadership culture. The offering represents the culmination of 5 decades of pioneering research to maximize the ROI of investments in development.

Users of Passport receive access to our extensive library of live online and in-person programs; learning support, including the CCL Compass leadership competency library and on-demand digital assets; asynchronous digital programs; and extensive facilitator support, including Train-the-Trainer certification. Organizations that choose CCL Passport will only have to pay one price for the unlimited access licensing, rather than the “pay per seat” model that is common in the industry.

“Passport is an unprecedented, evergreen offering from CCL,” said Jeff Howard, CCL’s Vice President of Global Portfolio & Leadership Solutions. “It’s the first time we’ve curated all of our content in a way that can accelerate an organization’s leadership development strategy. Even better, CCL expert facilitators will train clients to deliver content, helping ensure the experience is on par with CCL’s widely recognized high standards.”

The post CCL Launches CCL Passport™ Worldwide to Give Organizations an All-Access Pass to Research-Based Leadership Learning appeared first on CCL.

Every day, you and your colleagues in Human Resources or Learning & Development successfully orchestrate development programs, initiatives, and partnerships. You sift through countless new offerings and ideas that may — or may not — align with your training goals.

But your team is also staffed with skilled people who are steeped in the needs of the business. Internal leadership development can help you retain critical talent, support the business, and upskill your people by using the HR team that you already have in-house.

If you’re not making the most of your internal leadership development capabilities, you’re probably missing out.

4 Ways to Strengthen Your Internal Leadership Development Initiatives

Supplement Your Internal Leadership Development Efforts With External Support

The most effective Learning & Development approaches include a blend of internal leadership development expertise and external support. As you consider how you will future-proof your organization by scaling leadership development across your organization, consider these 4 strategies to make the most of your HR department’s in-house leadership development training expertise.

1. Do a talent review.

Take a fresh look at your people. Are people being pigeonholed into certain roles or tasks? Could you use data to increase areas of employee engagement and laser-focus your investments in talent? As you start to map out the learning agenda for the next year, next cycle, or new initiative, consider ways to increase commitment, provide access to development for all your talent (not just your high-potentials), to improve retention and secure your leadership pipeline.

This process can be part of employees’ personal development and career planning, as well as a strategy for maximizing the talents of your HR team while upskilling leaders at your organization. The chance to lead a session for new hires, mentor a first-time manager, or develop a blended learning program could be just what someone needs to be re-energized and more engaged in their role.

Elevate the role of your HR team by using 360-degree feedback data for insights about your organization’s talent and the business.

• Help your people identify their strengths, opportunities, and gaps with our industry-leading suite of leadership assessments so you have the valid, reliable, and actionable data needed for effective, targeted development at all leader levels.

2. Extend your coaching capability.

Coaching continues to be a growing and valuable way to develop talent. Some HR pros have extensive training and experience with coaching; many others don’t. But it often falls to HR to coach a struggling high-potential or a high performer whose abrasive style is causing problems.

HR staff linked to business units also have the opportunity to coach as they work day-to-day with operational team leaders. And these managers may look to you for guidance as they try to have talent conversations with their own employees. Ensuring they understand how to hold feedback conversations will immediately improve your talent development.

Outside coaches remain valuable (and are at times preferable), but creating a robust internal coaching capacity by building coaching skills in-house is a wise move for any HR function. Make sure your leaders know what it takes to coach people, and you can start to build a feedback culture across your organization.

• Our Better Conversations Every Day suite of conversational skills solutions can help improve the quality of conversations among people at every level. We can deliver this transformational coaching and conversational skills training — or your internal team can, with our licensed train-the-trainer option.

3. Leverage your facilitators.

You probably already have experienced facilitators who know your organization; make sure you are leveraging them as much as possible. They may be in various roles and departments — and might not even be part of the HR team. But as you look at your internal leadership development capacity, don’t overlook the value of talented people who can manage events, facilitate discussions, and lead training sessions.

You can prepare your internal facilitators to deliver leadership insights and training — from brief skill-building sessions through targeted leadership workshops on specific topics, all the way up to a complete and comprehensive program for your leaders at every level.

• If you’re looking for the latter, you can easily scale up your internal leadership development with CCL Passport, our integrated licensing solution that gives you unlimited access to our world-renowned content and a comprehensive library of proven and transformative leadership experiences. We provide your team with everything needed to help your leaders develop new skills and rapidly adapt to shifting challenges, and the material is kept perpetually timely and relevant with the latest research findings via quarterly refreshes. With train-the-trainer options, we can prepare your talented internal facilitators to deliver our world-class, research-backed leadership content in “the CCL Way.”

4. Focus on making learning stick.

Learning is a process, so take another look at ways your HR team can support and extend learning into day-to-day work. Our model for successful, sustained learning transfer helps HR leaders map out the elements that factor into sustainable and impactful leadership development efforts, including many that are already in your hands.

Because different types of learning networks help employees apply and integrate new ideas and practices, you’ll want to leverage virtual and social learning tools to increase accountability and foster the internal connections that fuel learning.

Accountability partners, learning partners, mentors, and managers can all play a role. Gamifying your digital learning experiences can also increase engagement and completion rates.

•  Your HR team can make a major impact on the organization by ensuring its largest population of leaders are well-supported. Frontline managers are typically the largest group but least experienced tier of leadership, and first-line managers may need help developing critical skills. Our social and gamified online development experience for frontline managers, Frontline Leader Impact, is specifically designed to provide scalable development for this population of new leaders. This program is a way to scale development across a large cohort of new managers at your organization, and is also included in our all-access pass to leadership development content and solutions.

Ready to Take the Next Step?

We understand the challenge of crafting internal leadership development initiatives and can help support your HR team to scale learning across your organization. Take advantage of our offerings such as CCL Passport, which gives you unlimited access to our world-renowned content and our most comprehensive package of proven, transformative leadership solutions. If you license our content, you can bring our proven research, programs, and tools in-house to leaders at all levels of your organization.

The post Maximize Your Internal Leadership Development appeared first on CCL.

Many companies and teams have been affected in some way by what’s been deemed the “Great Resignation.” Whether you’ve personally made a career shift, have scaled back work to care for loved ones during the pandemic, have stepped in to cover your departing colleagues’ responsibilities, or are charged with retaining employees in your organization, we’ve all felt the impact of the staggering statistics of employees resigning.

Many employees are eager to find more meaning or growth in their jobs and are searching for a better place to work, and at the same time, organizations are feeling pressed to find and keep the best talent for the future. To stay competitive in this work environment, organizations must intentionally create cultures that attract, develop, and retain talent so they can successfully execute new strategies for the changing world.

How can your organization create a culture that puts learning at the forefront — in a way that’s practical, behavioral, and scalable — in order to have the greatest impact on employee engagement? It starts with planting seeds for a learning culture to thrive.

What Is a Learning Culture?

A learning culture is an environment that demonstrates and encourages individual and organizational learning, and where both gaining and sharing knowledge is prioritized, valued, and rewarded. It becomes part of the ecosystem of the organization.

While it’s no small feat, there are 4 important components that can help transform your organization’s current culture into a learning culture.

How to Cultivate a Learning Culture at Your Organization

4 Components to Building a Learning Culture

1. Attract and develop agile learners.

If you’re looking to upskill your workforce or perhaps reskill yourself, learning agility is one of the most critical skillsets to develop. Our research at CCL has long shown that the most successful leaders with the longest careers have the key leadership trait of learning agility.

Learning-agile leaders exemplify a growth mindset by learning from experience, challenging perspectives, remaining curious, and seeking new experiences. (Not sure if that’s you? Here’s how to become a more agile learner.)

Because employees with learning agility continue to grow their skills and capabilities regardless of their current job, these individuals are in demand in the quest for talent. The workplace of yesterday no longer exists, and organizations need agile learners who understand how to transfer their current skillset to solve new problems and build capabilities for tomorrow.

• When hiring new talent: Seek out team members who learn from experience and challenge perspectives. Look for the critical skill of learning agility by asking interviewees how they’ve approached difficult situations in the past, how they’ve learned from mistakes, and how they prepare themselves for new challenges. Inquire about how they’ve applied their learnings to their next opportunity.
• For your current team members: Encourage people to remain curious and open. Provide ample opportunities for on-the-job learning and stretch assignments, along with support in the form of tools, mentoring, and coaching. Provide access to development opportunities for employees across your organization — don’t just limit skill-building to a small subset deemed “high potentials.”

Building a learning culture that democratizes leadership development and values a growth mindset will help you attract and retain a workforce that truly wants to learn, and help others learn as well.

2. Create an environment that supports psychological safety.

Looking at the teams and groups in your organization, are you fostering the trust and collaboration needed to sustain a strong learning culture? By creating safe spaces to be open and take interpersonal risks, you can build a foundation of psychological safety at work and encourage the learning that contributes to innovation and productivity.

Psychological safety is about promoting risk-taking and candor in a group, to create a secure environment for optimal learning. It’s the belief that candor is welcome, that employees can ask questions often and early, and that people can freely admit mistakes without fear of retribution.

Encourage team members (especially senior leaders) to admit mistakes openly and share stories of “failing forward.” Also, make sure executives know how to encourage innovation, not unintentionally sabotage and undermine it.

Ensuring leaders can create psychological safety for their teams allows team members to learn collectively and leads to a strong learning culture in your organization, where groups are willing to find lessons in setbacks and hardships, listen to one another, and invite differing opinions and candid conversations.

Remember, it’s not about being polite, but rather about being open. The openness to take interpersonal risks and glean lessons from mistakes to achieve something greater signifies a culture where growth is valued, which leads to a stronger organization that puts learning in the forefront.

Key tips and takeaways: 

• Promote risk-taking and transparency within your organization.
• Encourage team members to ask questions often and early.
• Welcome candor and encourage employees, as well as the senior leadership team, to admit mistakes and share lessons learned, without fear of consequence.

3. Encourage better conversations and feedback throughout the organization.

When determining how to cultivate learning culture, remember that effective communication and feedback should be woven throughout the organization and be encouraged and expected as a part of the norm. When feedback becomes a part of regular conversations, employees are aware of their personal developmental areas, resulting in continuous gains and fewer surprises at end-of-year reviews.

Giving feedback routinely and well often dramatically improves your talent development — but requires a particular skillset, which can fortunately be developed.

Encourage employees to give, and seek, both positive and developmental feedback. Positive feedback can help them leverage what’s working well already, and developmental feedback allows them to see what can be improved upon or done differently to have greater impact.

Because a conversation, by definition, involves 2 or more people, the collective communication competency of an organization is greatly enhanced when all employees are knowledgeable and skilled at holding high-quality conversations. Put simply, better culture starts with better conversations.

And that’s why our clients who have partnered with us to scale our conversational skills training across their organizations have seen such positive results: When a critical mass of people shares a common understanding around what constitutes an effective conversation, it allows new skills to be applied to everyday work, and to spread organically through the organization. Widely applied, improved conversational skills benefit the organization by creating more robust, innovative, stress-tested solutions and a more dynamic and psychologically safe, learning culture.

Key tips and takeaways: 

• Improve coaching and conversational skills across your entire organization with research-based, scalable training that helps build a common leadership language.
• Participate in meaningful conversations and provide valuable, actionable feedback.
• Encourage everyone in your organization to listen to one another and seek constructive feedback.

4. Make learning an explicit organizational priority.

If you want to show that learning is a real priority within your organization, send clear signals to your workforce that you’re all in.

Examine your policies, rewards systems, and opportunities to establish and reinforce a learning culture. Consider making these types of scheduled events a common practice at your organization:

• Lunch-and-learns, where senior leaders are storytellers who share their experiences and what they’ve learned recently and throughout their career journeys.
• After-action reviews, where teams regularly take a few minutes to share what they learned from a project or experience.
• Learning communities, where individuals can share what they’ve learned with similarly situated peers, and they can discuss together how they’re applying these learnings in their everyday work.
• Designated development days, where team- or company-wide sharing of lessons learned is expected and honored.

To show that your organization believes that learning is for everyone, make development opportunities inclusive and accessible across the entire organization. The practice of scaling learning will be unique for every organization, but be sure to provide an array of opportunities for “soft skill development” in a wide array of delivery formats to meet learner needs and abilities, including options that are asynchronous, in-person, self-paced, and virtual. (We’ve found that there are many unexpected benefits of using online learning for leadership development.)

Also, to ensure that you’re building a true learning culture, provide organizational support for learning not only in the form of tools and resources, but also by providing the necessary time and space for growth. Encourage leaders to allocate time for themselves and to set aside time for their teams to absorb and practice new skills.

When every employee sees that the organization values both individual and collective growth, you’ll strengthen your learning culture and gain commitment from your team members.

Key tips and takeaways: 

• Create a strong learning culture by making it an explicit organizational priority.
• Examine company policies, rewards systems, and career development opportunities — what’s missing and what can be improved?
• Consider making these types of scheduled events a common practice at your organization: lunch-and-learns, after-action reviews, learning communities, designated development days.

Build a Learning Culture That’s Tailored to Your Organization

To tailor your learning strategy to your organization, make sure to align your business strategy and leadership development opportunities, as well as your organization’s broader values, language, and brand. Examine the capabilities needed both today and into the future, and ask employees what type of development would be most valuable for them, as well as how they prefer to learn.

It’s important to acknowledge that not everyone is in a place to jump in right away. Keep in mind that behavior change is difficult. Meet people where they are, encouraging small steps, risk-taking, and sharing through peer support. Use metrics to keep a pulse on what’s resonating and having an impact so that you can adapt as needed and evolve your learning culture strategy as you grow.

Every organization is different, so the path to truly creating a culture of learning that will become a part of the ecosystem will be different as well. But with an intentional focus and commitment from the leadership team, you can plant the seeds today that allow a learning culture to flourish at your organization — resulting in a more agile work environment that’s prepared for the challenges of tomorrow.

Ready to Take the Next Step?

Build a learning culture in your organization by democratizing access to development opportunities. Take advantage of CCL Passport, which gives you unlimited access to our world-renowned content and our most comprehensive package of proven, transformative leadership solutions. If you license our content, you can bring our proven research, programs, and tools in-house to leaders at all levels of your organization.

Frequently Asked Questions About a Learning Culture

More questions? Our experts are here to help. Let’s have a conversation!

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Learn more about CCL Passport, which gives you unlimited access to our world-renowned content and our most comprehensive package of proven, transformative leadership solutions. Or get in touch with us to discuss how we can help support your in-house leadership development at scale.

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