3 Ways to Tell if Your Company Needs Leadership Training

According to the Bersin 2014 Corporate Learning Factbook, U.S. spending on corporate training has grown by 15% over the past year. It’s the highest rate in seven years. It makes complete sense. During the Great Recession, organizations cut back on training. Now, companies are faced with a leadership challenge – what many are calling a leadership gap.

Businesses need good leadership. We all know what good leadership does for our companies: it helps us achieve our business goals, engage our employees and grow the company. This translates into bottom-line profits and increased shareholder value.

Some companies might argue that leadership training doesn’t need to be pro-active. Their motto is only conduct training when it’s necessary. Unfortunately, this can set your organization on a bit of a roller coaster where you have peaks and valleys of organizational effectiveness based upon the quality of the leadership team (or lack thereof).

If you’re wondering how your leadership is faring right now, here are a three indicators that will tell you if leadership training might be necessary.

1) Because Your Employees Say So – I doubt that employees will come to your office and say “Get my manager some training asap!” Although they might. But they will come to your office and say things like:

“My manager doesn’t know what’s happening in our department.”

“My manager is playing favorites.”

“My manager promised me an answer last week and I haven’t heard a thing!”

“Everyone is getting away with murder and my manager isn’t doing a thing about it.”

Employee comments can be an indicator of a bigger issue. Listen to their concerns and ask yourself why they are happening.

2) Because Senior Leadership Says So – When executives can’t take a day off out of fear the office will fall apart, or when some C-Suite leader gets a call on the weekend because a manager can’t fix something…you can bet your reserved parking space a discussion about the quality of leadership will arise.

Also consider if you have senior executives who are planning their retirement, it’s perfectly normal and in the best interest of your business to have a conversation about where the next generation of leaders will come from and how to get them ready for those roles and responsibilities.

3) Because Your Customers Say So – I’m hearing from business owners that they are afraid to grow their company because the leadership team can’t handle it. I’ve known customers who would only deal with one person in a company because they didn’t trust anyone else.

Your company is in business to make money. This means your leadership team must be effective in order for your business to deliver quality products and services and keep customers happy. Is a fear of customer expectations or a lack of innovation restricting company profits? Yep, you can look for that to quickly become a leadership conversation.

Any or all of these signs are reason to think about your leadership team. Ask yourself the following question and answer it with brutal honesty, “If I didn’t work here, would I still be the evangelist for this brand? Would I still buy the product or service the company offers?”