When Leadership Training Can Hurt Your Team
Deciding to develop someone for leadership can cultivate company culture and even contribute to your employer brand. But, there are times when leadership training can cause more harm than good, making employees disgruntled, working against company values, and even stopping the development process.
Selecting “The Wrong” Candidate
Leadership can come in unlikely forms, and there aren’t rules on who can or cannot be a leader. However, you can select what is essentially the “wrong” candidate and that “wrong” can come in a variety of capacities.
Training a person who lacks core competencies for leadership, such as not being able to talk to people or being emotionally driven, may make it the wrong time to approach that candidate. Additionally, if the person only wants to climb the ladder to have a lighter workload, then their ability as a leader may be overshadowed by their ill-intent.
When choosing a candidate for leadership, you’re telling the staff that this is the type of person that you look for when promoting people. Selecting the “wrong” candidate can breakdown the morale of the team, but it can also foster rumors of nepotism.
Lacking Understanding of the Leadership Training and Development Process
If you’re not providing an engaging development process, then you’re wasting your time and money. Only about 19% of companies report that their leadership development is effective. That means that your company probably falls into that 81% of ineffective leadership development.
When building a leadership training program, make sure that you focus on core skills, developing their talents, and on working with people. Ensure that your programs provide a context for the information that your trainees give them something they can use. Leadership training will often school people on communication and praise without giving actual consideration into the people element. The result is frustration among your staff and new leaders as communication falters.
Training programs often don’t allow trainees to use their talents, and they usually don’t learn how to encourage others to work to their strengths either. The overall effect is that people will just go through the motions with a distinct damper on drive and innovation.
Mis-Timing the Training
Timing is always a concern when it comes to managing the development of an employee. If you decide to move a person into training before they have the respect of the team, then you could end up with numerous disgruntled employees. The trainee then becomes upset that they’re not moving up as quickly as they moved into training. Then the staff is shocked that this person was chosen for training so quickly.
However, if you wait too long to train and have an open role in leadership that needs to be filled now, then you have someone who’s not prepared for their new position. Waiting too long to develop a leader also kills the incentive to do better. They get the promotion, and then their performance will likely plateau.
Ultimately, if not well-planned, leadership training can do quite a bit of damage. Work with managers to ensure that they’ve identified the best future leader. Someone who aligns with the company values and the employer brand. Additionally, companies should communicate openly about the training process and address concerns directly to build a reliable training program.