How are your ‘new year’ resolutions going? Are you sticking to what you promised yourself? If you’ve jumped on the Veganuary bandwagon, are you resisting a juicy bacon butty yet? Or is ‘Dry January’ getting the better of you at weekends?! No matter how good your intentions are when you establish them, it’s tough to get changes to stick.
From a business perspective, the first quarter of a new year is Appraisals time for many companies; looking back and reviewing – what was good, what could be done better and then planning how you’re going to achieve the new goals that you set. Perhaps you have identified knowledge, behaviour or a skills gap within your team that you need to address.
None of us needs to be precious about our weaker areas. And let’s face it, no one is 100% at everything required to make a business successful. The best leaders recognise this and have a plan in place to address it.
If you’ve identified some gaps in the projects you are running, maybe these gaps are someone else’s strength within your team that you could delegate to. It shouldn’t be considered a weakness if a manager delegates part or all of a project to a team member who is a whizz at that particular skill.
The importance of recognising your strengths
Recognising your own strengths as a leader has never been more important. And even more important is the ability to delegate – particularly for smaller businesses where outsourcing it to a third party may present cost constraints.
If you have identified team members that you feel have the potential to lead and manage projects, but need some leadership development, then a training programme is far more cost-effective than recruiting new team leaders. With the right mentoring and training, your staff can build their confidence in managing and leading to excel in those areas.
The wider benefits of leadership development
There are other added benefits of management training that are linked to the engagement and retention of people. It also bolsters the company image so that potential employees see you as a business that invests in their staff. Research shows that development is high on the list of what job seekers are looking for in their next company. It’s then just a case of identifying and working with a training provider who understands what you are trying to achieve and can guide you to the best possible outcome.
Whichever way you decide is best for you to plug the skills and knowledge gap, our expert trainers can help.
Here’s a short summary of what courses are available depending on your needs:
- If you want to learn more about identifying the skills that naturally exist now within your business, then our one-day Masterclass ‘Developing self-awareness leadership for People Managers’ is for you.
- If you have identified that soft skills need to be strengthened in order that your business is authentically people centric, then ‘Creating high performance in your team’ is for you.
- If you think that overall the management of people difficulties is poor and you want to do better, come to ‘Essential Legislation for People Managers’.
- If you want to empower others and learn how to get people taking more interest and responsibility, then ‘Developing a Coaching Culture’ is the one for you.
- If you have a new manager and want to shorten the learning curve and get them on the right footing, the full Clarity7 course is ideal to take managers on their new leadership journey.
There really is something to benefit everyone, and if you think that recruiting someone new is the best route for you, guess what? We’ve got a combined 50 years of experience with that too! In 2020, get the right people on your side and work with you.
