3 Critical Keys to Leadership Training

Why is leadership training so vital to performance? People need real leaders. and leaders need leadership training that matches the training with the real needs of our times.

In light of the many changes that are happening in front of our very eyes, we need to update the term Leadership and with that redefine and update what leadership training is from where it is to the level of “as was meant to be”.

For this to actually take place leadership training programs must go through an overhaul process that will reflect the much-needed skills that are required from leaders today.

Let The Need Lead

In my career as a trainer, coach, facilitator (I actually don’t like these titles, I think of myself more as an Agent of Change) I have conducted many, many leadership training seminars all over the world, training and coaching leaders, some in very powerful positions.

My experience enabled me to draw a silhouette of the face of leadership and particularly the problems that leaders face.

These problems repeat themselves everywhere, regardless of the country or the type of business.

The curious thing is that every organization is so wrapped up in its own problems and thinks they are unique to them. Nothing could be further from the truth…  the problems that leaders face are incredibly similar across the world.

In other words, organizations are not unique in the level of their problems because these problems reflect the lack of personal development features and the absence of leadership skills.

However, what makes an organization unique is its willingness to escape its comfort zone and invest in the leadership training process over a period of time, one that does not focus on problems but rather on long-term solutions.

The willingness to step out of their comfort zone to meet their needs is Unique.

The unfortunate truth is that the majority of those who are in a position of leadership lack fundamental leadership skills and seem to be locked in past views and opinions, which often have nothing to do with the present needs.

Worse, they live in a reality of their own making, one that is divorced from the real reality, where leadership has become a fancy title rather than an honorable function which in its core has the meaning “To be worthy of other people”.

I am often asked to come and conduct leadership training programs, and the first moto in leadership training is

“Let Need Lead”

And here is why this is important:

The needs of leadership training must reflect the reality, the conditions, the “changing of the guard” from one generation to another, the “gender revolution/evolution”, economic changes, world trends, and of course the covid/post-covid effects that are gradually revealed.

Therefore the title Leadership Training has to be updated to Situational Leadership Training, which means the kind of training that trains leaders to be responsive to the needs of the moment to be able to draw out of their “bags of tools” the tool that is needed at that moment, that occasion, that situation.

All too often I find that leaders tend to miss the cause of the problems they face and therefore entirely misdiagnose the need by focusing on the symptom.

Let it be known from the start that leadership training, or for that matter any serious professional training should never focus on symptoms but rather search for the cause, to detect what aspects need to be rooted out, and what new seeds need to be planted.

Therefore, leadership training programs are not a one-time “magic wand” affair but must be a regular “fresh air” infusion to the leadership by professionals such as me, that would oversee the ongoing development and the application of leadership tools that were passed in the training sessions.

So what this is saying is that leadership training needs to focus on:

a. Detecting the cause of the problems
b. Engaging in the kind of process that creates an environment that does not allow these problems to fester.
c. To equip leaders with sets of tools that can be monitored in continuous leadership training sessions.

The Fault Line of Leadership

Unfortunately, I find that many so-called leaders suffer from what I call “The Leadership Disconnect Crisis”.

The main symptom of that crisis is that leaders do not know their people, don’t relate to them on the human level, and have very little interpersonal and communication skills to form a bond of trust, which can be summed up in the following words “The main fault line of leadership is in behavioral sciences” (soft skills).

The absence of focus in leadership training programs on behavioral sciences and much-needed soft skills has led to an EGO-based leadership instead of Leadership By Example.

The ego tends to produce a self-view that sees the so-called leader to be an authority that doesn’t have to prove its credentials.

An Ego based leader tends to think that they know better than anyone else in everything!!! It amounts to Ego deciding (often wrong decisions) and Ego protecting itself.

This way of proceeding blocks the system, keeps people at bay, decreases ROI, reduces productivity to a minimum, and ensures a high rate of workforce turnover.

This is Leadership by Title rather than Leadership by Merit.

Therefore, to break the “spell” that makes leadership toxic, leadership training must be of the anti-ego style of training and instead have skill-focused leadership training programs.

The Solution

Albert Einstein said (and I paraphrase) the solution to a problem cannot be found where the problem is.

In other words, the level of thinking that caused the problem is not the level of thinking that will find the solution… AND BOY WAS HE RIGHT!

From my experience in conducting leadership training for over three decades, to get to the level of thinking that focuses on solutions requires first and foremost a level of vulnerability from leaders, and leaders to be, that are willing to acknowledge and own up to their repeated mistakes, especially in behavioral sciences.

Without the urgency to move on and become the kind of leaders that people can trust, their ego will not allow them to be vulnerable.

That is where I come in, and I am able, with a high degree of success, to “invite” people to their development and continued growth.

Having achieved early levels of vulnerability (humanity, humility) the leadership training environment created by myself with the agreement of the participants becomes diagnostic-specific to locate personal and collective fault lines in leadership today.

The important part is that we do it together, in that for leadership training to be effective it must be two-way training where the participants have a huge role in discovering lasting solutions.

Much much more can be written about this but I would want the reader to understand that leadership training is highly scientific in the human sense and requires long-term and ongoing training to obtain long-term results.

Furthermore, solution-oriented leadership training is firstly a personal development training, a trust-building training, and focuses heavily on understanding people and learning to communicate in such a way that makes them the stakeholders, for if you are not a people’s person, what kind of leader are you?

Leadership is a human business first

What The Thinking Coach Leadership Training Programs Can Do For Your Organization?

These exceptional corporate training seminars make a difference! The leadership training programs are founded upon international experience of over 30 years.

The leadership training programs are challenging and provide a high caliber of learning, and present a paradigm shift in thinking and attitude of leadership today, which serves as a catalyst & an inspiration for real change.

The Thinking Coach style of Leadership Training is challenging and rewarding and is not for the faint of heart, but rather those leaders that want to lead with true CHARISMA.

The kind of process-based leadership training that leads to results, where the results are a natural symptom of the process.

Eli Harari

The Life Coach for Professionals™