Why Low Cost Leadership Development Is Good Business

By Gary Smith


Businesses are run by their lead personnel, and effort, time and resources are consumed in the process of developing these from recruitment programs or inhouse talent pools. The competition for talent also affects this process, and it is highly competitive in this day and age. These people are those needed to parts of a company and constantly provide strategic and tactical guidance.

Leaders are not born but made, trained to be the movers and shakers in the business environment. Low cost leadership development is something that is organic to an organization, and a much needed resource today. It is also a program made to search out, monitor and guide talent in preparation for bigger roles.

For any company, it is always necessary to fit people into the bigger picture, to acclimatize them to culture, mission and policies. Developing leaders is no easy task and can fail when rushed or the development is haphazard. Top management takes its time to study and create programmatic models for creating its company leaders.

Innovation, flexibility, diversity and innovation are the factors that should influence your program. To keep costs low, this should start right at the beginning for developing potential future leaders. This means that they have to look for talent when hiring at entry level, keep hiring for midcareerists at the minimum, because at this stage recruiting them is costly.

Organizations should keep a system of leadership mentoring that starts with recruitment, HR or personnel departments. This means that the eye for leaders is something basic in hiring, and it is a must to tag those hires specifically taken for future leadership roles. In this way development is organic to any organization.

When trying to attract established leaders in other companies, there is always some specific need addressed. This is more on the recruitment side, but development should also come in right from the start. These potential hires are felt out, wined and dined and to have their interest and sympathy hooked, and this is the developmental side of the process.

These processes are probably the most expensive, so you need to weigh your choices and do some specific targeting. Getting these kinds of people has to be very cost effective, for one. The cost of hiring them must be outweighed by the things they can do for you.

Volunteerism and initiatives based work should also be part of the running of your company. These enable your people to know what they can do based on their own understanding of their skills. And when they display an interest for getting into leadership positions, some benefits and relevant training for more skills should be offered for those who pass the qualifications.

Identifying the right people is intrinsic to leadership development, and picking them out and making them step up should be something acceptable to all. Direct hires for leadership positions can often end up as bad decisions and the balance must be found somewhere. The company is responsible for finding its weaknesses and identify its strengths in this regard.




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