What’s keeping CEOs up at night?
Believe it or not, it’s developing and retaining the next generation of leadership talent. Without having the right people in place to lead, they have little chance of being able to take on issues like global competition, cyber-security, recession, or market disruption.
Developing that next generation of leadership starts with leaders who are at the very beginning of their leadership careers. Often, new leaders’ journeys are filled with anxiety, but there are five practical steps that can accelerate your leaders toward success and prepare them for the next higher levels of leadership.
1. Increase learning opportunities
New leaders usually dive head-first into tight schedules, and may struggle to find the time to develop the skills they need. A LinkedIn study showed 94% of Millennials and Gen Z said that learning is the number one thing that makes them happy at work, and more than a quarter said the most likely reason they would leave a job is because they didn’t have the opportunity to learn and grow.
At the same time, the study also showed that the most common barrier to learning is time. While many companies are trying to fit learning in outside of the classroom, research from DDI’s Frontline Leader Project shows that 59 percent of surveyed first-level leaders want more formal workshops, training courses and seminars than they are currently getting.
Surprisingly, these findings hold true for millennials even more so than their older counterparts. Sixty-five percent of millennial leaders want more formal learning. While many companies are making the assumption that the generation of digital pioneers prefers to learn virtually, they may be missing the fact that millennials are the most educated generation we’ve ever had in the workforce, and are used to the traditional classroom form of learning.
2. Don’t neglect coaching and mentoring
As the business world rapidly changes, leaders need to quickly learn new skills and accelerate their growth. Mentoring and coaching are critical tools to support that learning, but research shows that leaders aren’t getting enough of either. Sixty percent of leaders never had a formal mentor, despite the clear benefits to the individuals and organization when mentoring is in place. To avoid a lack of leadership role models, provide your new leaders with a mentoring relationship that will be critical to their development.
Coaching is an even hotter topic. Forty-nine percent of leaders want more coaching from their manager and 57 percent want more external coaching. Whether receiving mentorship from their manager or an external coach, leaders will develop their skills and confidence. You can coach your leaders by providing guidance around day-to-day tasks and long-term projects. Between the classroom and coaching, your leaders’ learning and development will begin to provide them with the skills they need to succeed.
3. Strengthen internal communication to drive purpose
New leaders may experience a disconnect from their position to their companies’ overarching goals and values. Your leaders need to know how to find purpose in their work and align with your company’s vision. Companies are struggling to communicate purpose to frontline leaders, and findings show 90 percent of HR respondents said their company has a mission statement, but only 28 percent of leaders said their company has a mission statement. Clearly, purpose is getting lost in translation.
To mend this knowledge gap, those in HR positions must strength internal communications to increase the awareness of organizational purpose. When leaders find purpose in their work, they will be more engaged and connect their work to a meaningful overarching mission. This purpose delivers clear business results: According to the Global Leadership Forecast 2018, purpose-driven companies outperform the market by 42 percent financially. New leaders can learn about your company’s purpose in formal orientation sessions and through day-to-day communications.
4. Promote collaboration among teams
Workflows that don’t promote collaboration miss out on leaders learning from one another. Unfortunately, 52 percent of leaders say individuals at their organization work in silos, and only 54 percent feel confident they can act based on input from multiple sources or perspectives. Your leaders and their teams should feel capable to produce work that reflects multiple sources and the best knowledge available to the company. Organizations should encourage teams to cut across boundaries and give leaders the skills needed to work collectively to drive toward common goals.
5. Encourage finding success through failures
The transition to leadership is difficult, and there are many things leaders are learning how to do for the first time. The good news is that new leaders’ fresh perspective can be a powerful driver of innovation. But the fear of failure can discourage leaders from doing anything differently than previous leaders have done. In fact, only seven percent of leaders say failure is strongly embraced for innovation.
Teach and encourage your leaders to fail forward. That doesn’t mean that you need to accept poor performance. Rather, it’s about coaching leaders through new processes to ensure that the potential risks are understood, and mitigated where possible. When failure occurs, coach leaders to find critical takeaways they can learn from and use to fuel a more successful project next time.
First time leaders have a lot to learn, and it’s important that they get the support they need early in their journeys. These leaders will be the next generation of talent CEOs need to move up into middle management and executive positions, and it’s critical that they begin to cultivate a learning orientation early in their careers so they’re prepared to grow into the challenges ahead.
By Julianne Spataro
