Most Leaders are Made not Born
We’ve all heard the expression: “He’s a born leader.” In reality, most leaders are made nor born. While it is true that a few people have natural leadership qualities, most do not. They acquire their leadership skills over time and usually with a lot of training along the way. Who gets chosen to participate in these training activities, however, is often based on subjective factors or assumptions about what leaders. This is why it is essential to extend leadership training to as many employees (ideally all employees) rather than simply a select few.
Why Recognizing Everyone’s Leadership Potential Matters
Recognizing every employee’s leadership potential is important for many reasons, including those related to the promotion of equality in the workplace. When we assume that leadership is necessarily about one thing (e.g., about speaking up and taking control), we risk only seeing some employees as leaders. Indeed, women and minorities are often overlooked for leadership roles in the workplace precisely because they don’t fit the stereotype of a leader while younger White men often do appear to fit the stereotype. This means that leadership training often targets employees who simply share an identity (e.g., gender or race) or interest (e.g., hockey or basketball) in common with one’s existing leaders. However, assuming there is some special and inherent mix of attributes that make a leader and that leaders are born not trained usually perpetuates social inequalities in the workplace and all too often keeps minorities out of top leadership roles.
Leadership Training in Reach
Whether you’re running a small organization or large global operation, there are advantages to extending leadership training to all employees. While they won’t all end up in executive positions, training employees across ranks to lead has many take aways. It means that everyone from people working on the shop floor to people on your board can play a role in mentoring new employees and realizing your organization’s broader long-term vision.
Of course, if you decide to extend your leadership training to all employees, cost becomes a factor. To help you get started, eLeaP has compiled a series of essential training videos for your next leadership and management training initiative. Simple, flexible and affordable, our library of videos and support materials is designed to enables organizations of any scale to offer high quality leadership and management training. Below are just a few highlights.
What to Say When: Setting Objective: You need to keep all your team members aligned with your business goals, but how do you do this? How do you get employees to help meet your key objectives? This video offers insights into bringing employees into alignment with your broader organizational vision.
Leadership Feedback: What employees want to tell you…but don’t!: Some leaders are able to listen to employees and others are not. This video explores the importance of leadership feedback, how to solicit it, how to take it in and how to respond in a productive manner.
AWESOME: A New Generation at Work, Engaging Generation Y: A new generation is arriving in the workplace. Generation Y is now in their twenties to early thirties and eager to diversify the workplace, tackle embedded equality, and shake up how and where we work. This video offers insight into who this generation is, their values and what they have to offer.
Creating a Mindset for Change: We’ve now all heard about the “growth mindset” and why it matters. This video series takes Carol Dweck’s concept one step further to explore how a mindset for growth or change can positively impact management and leadership styles and in turn help organizations grow over time.
What to Say When: A Team Member is Late: Most of us have been late for work and encountered an employee who has been late for work. This video helps managers deal with late employees, especially chronically late employees, by offering practical tips and detailing when and how to penalize employees who can’t show up on time.
Learn more about eLeap’s Leadership and Management Essentials and start developing your leadership training initiative now.