Is it worth investing in leadership development?
A mortgage lending organization wanted to know if leadership effectiveness impacted business results. They commissioned a study1 of hundreds of their branches across North America and isolated the factors influencing business results so they could zero in on leadership effectiveness specifically. They analyzed financial data for each branch and assessed leadership effectiveness through a 360-degree assessment. They found that:
- The branches with the bottom-performing branch managers (10%) had a net loss of $1.2 million.
- The branches with average leaders (80%) had a profit of $2.4 million.
- Finally, the most effective managers (10%) had branches with a profit of $4.5 million.
How are you investing in your leaders to ensure they are the most effective and positively impact your company?
Be curious to build resilience and adaptability.
Being curious is a fundamental part of being human. It moves us from being indifferent to experiences and people around us to being inquisitive. It helps shift ‘quiet quitters’ into engaged employees.
A quick Google search shows that resiliency and adaptability are two key drivers for organizations today. It makes sense. The world we live and work in is unstable, constantly changing and increasingly complex. Organizations need resiliency in the short term to bounce back from difficulties and adaptability to make adjustments for the long term.
The reality, though, is that organizations are made of people. So, for organizations to be resilient and adaptable, leaders, teams and individuals need to be. These aren’t traits that can be taught in a training course. Instead, leaders need to foster a team culture of learning, including curiosity, to build resilience and adaptability in their teams.
We learn the most from failure.
As I write my next book, I’m exploring the impact of curiosity and courage on leadership, learning and growth. We learn from our successes, and I know we can learn even more from our mistakes. Slipping up is uncomfortable, and we have to work hard to find the lessons in our failures.
So, why is it worth taking risks, knowing we might fail?
Research2 has shown that we learn the most from our failures. As leaders, when we role model our risks and what we learn from our mistakes, we create a culture of learning that fosters growth. In this tight talent market, if our people aren’t growing, they’re going.
1 How extraordinary leaders double profits by Jack Zenger and Joe Folkman 201 (link) .
2 Masden, Peter M., and Vinti Desai. “Failing to Learn? The Effects of Failure and Success on Organizational Learning in the Global Orbital Launch Vehicle Industry.” The Academy of Management Journal, vol. 53, no. 3 (2010): pp. 451–76, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25684332. Accessed 17 April 2022.
In case you missed it
I’ve shared some additional posts online. Here they are, in case you missed them.
- Managing changing employee values and priorities (video link)
- Training is not an event (video link)
- Workplaces are a place of growth (video link)
