Developing Front Line Leaders
As a recruiting team, we have a view into hundreds of small businesses to see how they build and lead their teams. While this isn't exactly precision data, the granular information we collect from talking with hundreds of business owners and managers and thousands of candidates shapes our views of best practices in businesses.
Our clients who invest heavily in their front-line managers, supervisors, and team leads build winning teams. These leaders protect company culture, drive team engagement, and upskill your workforce. Investing in your leaders improves employee retention, job satisfaction, and productivity. But so often, individuals are promoted into leadership roles because they are highly skilled at the work without getting the training they need to be highly skilled at leading others.
So, what does investing in leaders and emerging leaders look like? Here are a few strategies we've observed with our top-performing clients.
Classes. Whether at a local college, technical school, or a business organization like the Chamber, there are classes available on leadership and management topics. Thaddeus Stevens & the Goble Group have a class starting this September on Collaborative Leadership to help your ground-level leaders develop the skills they need to build their teams effectively.
Book Studies. Choose a book that is easy and interesting to read like The Ideal Team Player, Radical Candor, or Crucial Conversations. Break the book into bite-sized reading assignments and meet as a group to discuss it. Or provide incentives for reading books like a bonus or a gift card. Develop a form for employees to complete where they can share how they will apply what they learned. If you don't already have one, build out a company library. Leaders are Readers.
On-site training. Bring in a business coach or industry expert for workshops or ongoing training and coaching. Outside trainers will often work with the group but may include one-on-one training. For example, you work on understanding personality differences and communication styles through a DISC workshop. Or you can collaborate with your coach to create career path options and cross-training opportunities to upskill your workforce. Whether once a month or once a quarter, ongoing in-house training can be invaluable in building up your management team!
Leadership events. Take your team to workshops, half-day events, seminars, etc. Expose them to new ideas and best practices in what it means to be a leader. But these events are only as good as what you do with the information. Take time to discuss it afterward. Is there anything you learned that can be put into practice now? In the future? Team Builder is a proud sponsor of 2 upcoming leadership events—Live2Lead and the Kingdom Focused Summit.
Peer Groups. Organizations like Vistage and Convene are known for their CEO/business owner peer groups. However, they also host groups for "emerging leaders" within your organization. These peer groups help individuals strengthen their leadership skills to serve their teams.
Henry Ford once said, "The only thing worse than training your employees and having them leave, is NOT training them and having them stay." Our highest-performing clients understand the importance of developing leadership and technical skills for those they plan to promote. How do you invest in the leaders of your company to guarantee both their success and the success of your business?