If you’re a business owner, you may be wondering, “Why is leadership development important to organizations?” You may even be wondering if spending money on leadership development is something that impacts your organization enough to want to invest in it.
The short answer is you can’t afford to not spend the money. Leadership development is critical to a company.
But why is leadership development important to organizations? The reasons vary, but a leader performing at their highest potential is likely to lead their team to new heights. When both leaders and their team members are performing well, the company is sure to follow.
People Feed Off Each Other
Whether you’re in a leadership position or not, the universal truth is that people feed off each other. So when leaders are performing at their best, their teams will also start performing better.
This is just one reason why leadership development is essential to organizations.
When a leader is working at their highest potential, they can implement the best strategies for their teammates to follow suit. For example, if a leader has developed good communication skills, they will communicate more effectively with their team members. As communication improves, trust will be formed, and from that trust, relationships will also develop.
As these working relationships get stronger, a good leader will make suggestions for their team members to improve their workflows and start performing to the best of their abilities. When people are performing well, others begin to notice and begin to push themselves to do better.
Because people feed off each other, the more leadership development someone in a leadership role has, the better off that their employees and their company will be.
Beyond the fact that people will feed off each other, as leaders and team members begin to push themselves to their full potential, you create an environment where everyone can learn from each other. Everybody wants to learn more–everybody has a certain curiosity. When a good leader develops skills that encourage their team to develop their skills, there’s no better way for a team to learn. This kind of environment helps push the team and company to a whole different level of success.
Building a Healthy Culture
Leadership development isn’t just important for the success of employees and companies. It’s also vital for any company’s culture.
Company culture can make or break a business, and company culture begins and ends with the leadership team. That’s one of the biggest reasons why leadership development is critical to creating a successful business.
How many times have you been in an organization where you just feel like something isn’t real? You just don’t feel like the leader is authentic?
In business, why not try to build an authentic, honest company culture–why not create a culture that is like a family?
Authenticity is Key to Show How Important Leadership Development is to Organizations
Think about your personal life and who you’re most honest with. It’s your spouse, your family, your best friends, your community. Why can’t a business operate like that? Leaders who aspire to create this same environment in the office often find that their company does have a more honest and authentic culture.
The openness of a company culture like this creates an unbelievable camaraderie. Your teammates are suddenly rooting for each other to succeed and reach their highest potential. It may also breed lasting friendships where co-workers are genuinely excited for their peers when they achieve success.
Open and honest company culture can help reduce jealousy in the workplace, leading to less drama and other toxic behaviors that are all too common in the business world.
To answer “why is leadership development important to organizations?” in a fuller context, listen to all of Episode 39, where Jason Bey discusses how to build a better team. You may also consider coaching from the Ed Molitor group to get one on one leadership development that can help optimize your organization.
