“To finish a work? To finish a picture? What nonsense! To finish it means to be through with it, to kill it, to rid it of its soul, to give it its final blow the coup de grace for the painter as well as for the picture.” ~Pablo Picasso

Being a leader is a lot like being a great artist. Why? Because leading others IS an art! If you don’t know what brush, technique, paint, or background to use, you just might create anything BUT art!

To become a great artist, a master, requires years education in an apprenticeship program, countless hours of practice, a dogged persistence to be the best, and the realization that it is a never-ending process. The same rules apply to becoming an extraordinary leader.

I was reminded of this once again while recently wrapping up one of our 7-month leadership development programs.

The program is entitled, The Art of Leading, Coaching & Influencing Others ® and it was designed specifically to educate leaders and to build their leadership development skills.

Part of bringing closure to this program is designing a process to take what they learned and purposefully weave it into the fabric of the organization, both as individual leaders and as a team. As we went around the room, it became very clear (as it always does at this point in the program) that the most effective way to develop leaders is to teach leaders how to lead, coach, and influence their folks and then to teach them how to develop those same skills in their people.

The One & Done Approach Doesn’t Work

A typical leadership program starts on day one and ends when the last participant walks out’ve the room later that same day or the next.

It is a one and done process, no follow up, no accountability, no consistency, and with very little or no return-on-investment. Is it any wonder that executives continue to question the dollars spent on developing leaders versus the value they are getting in return?

When you take a look around and see the vast number of people in leadership positions who shouldn’t be there, I think we can conclude that what we are doing to develop leaders…isn’t working.

Whose Developing & Educating Your Leaders?

Over the course of the last 25 years, I have found companies who use internal folks to run their leadership development programs. Many times this is a cost-driven decision and they utilize internal people who have absolutely no leadership experience, meaning they have never been in a leadership position.

I have also observed organizations who use external leadership folks, again who have no experience in leading others, they feel their education or their credentials (the initials after their name) qualifies them to teach others how to lead.

The best people to develop your leaders are your current leaders who are in a leadership position and have been educated on how to develop their talent. And this is where Picasso’s quote comes in, because it is an ongoing, never-ending process! That is why the folks who are in the fray, in the battle, on the front-line, each and everyday, are the best indicators of what needs to be done! They just need to be properly educated on how to lead, coach, influence, and develop their talent. That’s just what we do!

Times change, people change, the workforce changes, and so you have to change as a leader. While this concept of Developing Leaders Who Develop Leaders™ sounds simple, the results are extraordinary and has been proven over-time to be extremely effective, both in achieving results and in cost-containment.

Here’s why:

1. It increases the return on investment of the program ten-fold because it is self-perpetuating.
2. It is one of the most successful ways to retain the information learned throughout the program because the retention rate increases to 95% when you teach what you were taught.
3. It benefits the leader and the person being developed simultaneously.
4. It creates a built-in succession plan as leaders identify and develop those folks who want to follow the leadership path.
5. It effectively develops future more leaders in a way that allows them to be educated by people who are actually leading and not someone who has never been in a leadership position or with no leadership experience.
6. It increases morale and engagement because future leaders feel they are being developed in an ongoing, continuous, real-life, process and have a path they can follow. This is critically important for the Millennial and Gen Z generation’s.
7. It transforms an organization because it creates a consistent leadership culture that is aligned, intentional, accountable, and results-driven.

3 Questions to Ask Yourself About Your Leadership Development Program:

1. Are you measuring the wrong thing? Part I
2. Is it engineered for the masses or the individual leaders? Part II
3. Is it a one and done or does it self-perpetuate and intentionally develop more leaders?

In a world filled with an infinite number of choices on how you develop leaders it is rare to find a program designed to address the individual needs of a leader while building a team of leaders who will help you achieve the results you want.

If you are interested in learning about how you and your organization can benefit from this powerful program, please contact us here or call us a 847-922-9190

*This is the conclusion of a 3-part series on the challenges organizations face when it comes to their Leadership Development Programs and a few ideas on how to make them even better! We hope you enjoyed the content!