Leadership Training: What’s The ROI?

For all levels of leaders – from brand new managers to C-suite executives – leadership training offers a path towards expanding the capacity of leaders in your organization to operate in the roles they currently possess, and the roles you hope they will grow into. Companies that invest in leadership training understand that investing in their people offers outsized ROI.

In fact, a recent study found that running first-time managers through a leadership development program offered a 29% ROI in the first 3 months, and a 415% annualized ROI. This means that the business made $4.15 for every $1 spent on training.

In this article, we’ll take a deeper look at leadership training and what to look for when shopping for training for your organization.

What Is Leadership Training?

Now that we’ve answered the question, “What is Leadership Training?” and shared the purpose of leadership training, let’s discuss how it’s delivered. Effective leadership training is delivered across multiple mediums, but the most common form is through online courses paired with hands-on exercises and engaging experiences to develop leadership skills.

Leadership training courses vary in length and program duration – and should be tailored to the specific leadership level – but it is common for participants in a management or leadership training course to learn skills such as:

• Giving constructive feedback to employees and peers
• Communication skills
• Integrating new employees into the workplace
• Evaluating employee performance

Such courses can even address more complex leadership scenarios, such as building a winning culture or designing incentive schemes.

Creating or Choosing a Training Program

We recommend three steps when identifying a leadership training program for your organization.

1. Define what success looks like. Set goals and metrics that line up with the definition.
2. Be specific. What are the leadership gaps inside of your organization? For example, at Management Consulted, we focus many of our trainings on helping leadership teams communicate clearly and manage workflows efficiently.
3. Identify what each leadership level in your org needs. Senior leaders will probably respond better to executive coaching, while more junior leaders may respond better to group coaching. Understand your distinct stakeholder groups and build a custom program for each one.

Benefits Of Leadership Development Training

Leadership training has become a hot commodity with companies investing billions of dollars into it. Some question whether there are measurable benefits of leadership development training to justify the investment.

The Training Industry states that leadership development training garners a significant return on investment as managers who go through a course or workshop bring greater value to their workplace or corporation.

But how? By developing better managers, a company can decrease turnover, increase employee satisfaction, and create a more productive working environment. This means that each employee is now getting more – and perhaps better – work done, per hour, because of better leadership. In this sense, offering leadership training as an option for your employees can lead to a significant return on investment. At the same time, it will always be up to the individual company to determine the bottom-line benefits of leadership development training.

Any leadership training which is integrated into a business should be measured based on the standards and returns which are most important to that particular workplace, and not generalized cases and studies.

It is also important to note that to reap the benefits of leadership development training, managers and directors must be supported and encouraged to continue developing their leadership training skills on the job. If not, taking leadership training courses can lead to short term change, making the time and money invested into leadership training not worth the investment.

Skills Training

When we talk about leadership training, we’re really talking about leadership skills training. Trainings can be focused on any number of hard or soft skills – e.g., conflict resolution, time management, communication skills.

Some of the top leadership skills training courses are offered through business schools and universities in addition to through platforms like Coursera. These options allow you to take leadership skills training courses on your own time and at your own pace.

At the same time, there are many benefits of face-to-face leadership training. In-person leadership skills training is especially effective in ensuring that participants are engaged and can apply learnings in real time.

Top Leadership Training Courses

When searching for leadership skills training, there are a variety of leadership training courses to examine. Through conversations or instruction from industry experts, burgeoning leaders can learn how to become the best version of themselves.

Specifically, this form of leadership training encourages managers and business professionals in supervisory roles to develop their own leadership style and beliefs. With this new understanding of leadership, managers and directors can practice their leadership styles and skills within the workplace environment.

According to Harvard Business School, leadership training courses should exemplify the “3 Benefits of Leadership Training”:

1. Being able to analyze how effective you are as a leader
2. Learning and applying leadership skills
3. Receiving feedback from other leaders, and knowing how to act on it

It is important to look for leadership training courses which address these three areas. In addition, leadership training courses which offer instruction from successful leaders in your field or industry will offer some of the greatest benefits.

Conclusion

Investments in leadership training and leadership skills training are an important driver of success for any business. Good leaders make for better and happier employees, which not only increases morale but ensures higher retention and productivity. If you’re looking to increase your team’s communication and persuasion skills, learn more about an interactive Management Consulted training.

 

Additional Reading:

• Leadership: Where Everything Rises and Falls
• Leadership Development: The Ultimate Consulting Soft Skill
• Top 3 Things To Do As New Manager
• Pyramid Principle Applied