Leadership training for new leaders
There are various factors that affect the decision to promote a person to a new leadership role.
Regardless of those factors, after a person has taken their first leadership role, they are usually expected to deliver results from day 1, and this makes sense, because it is a leader who has to show others the way, i.e. lead, and not the other way round.
This logic, however, seems to be defective on numerous occasions in practice.
Although a new leader may have the skills, experience, and qualifications to fit in their role, they most probably new further training, even in the form of just getting themselves accustomed and adapted to the new situation.
Therefore, even if the most qualified gets promoted to a new leadership role, this doesn’t mean that they don’t need any more training after that; quite the contrary.
Leadership training for seasoned leaders
OK, it’s fairly understandable that new leaders need some sort of further and continuous training due to new and changing circumstances.
The problem arises with more experienced leaders who fail to understand the role that ongoing, lifelong training plays in their career, as well as in the performance of the organization/s that they lead.
In this case, instead of being a facilitator of high performance for leaders, experience becomes an obstacle, and in fact, an insurmountable one.
It is not rare to hear veteran leaders saying: “Everything is in here!”, tapping their head, and claiming that they know everything and have the solutions to all problems.
Unsurprisingly, leadership training is definitely not a waste of time for those leaders, because, in this way, there is a slight chance of turning themselves into assets from the liabilities that they currently are.
Further reading:
Ever been on a lousy leadership course? Good leadership training needs these 5 ingredients