Earlier this week, we hosted a free webinar, Twelve Ways to Develop Remarkable Leaders, with Kevin Eikenberry, the Chief Potential Officer of The Eikenberry Group. The Eikenberry Group is a learning and consulting company that provides a wide range of services, including training delivery and design, facilitation, leadership coaching, organizational consulting, and speaking services. Eikenberry has worked with many major organizations such as Cirque du Soleil, Chevron, John Deere, and Southwest Airlines. He was recently named by Inc.com as one of the top 100 Management and Leadership Thinkers in the world. Remarkable Leadership: A Learning Series offers a flexible and practical learning experiences for leaders at all levels.
Over 270 people attended the learning event. You may view the archived webinar here.
The session began with a general question. Why develop leaders? Turns out there are several reasons.
- Build organizational capacity
- Reduce turnover
- Increase employee satisfaction
- Create organizational sustainability
- Support organizational growth
What is your reason? Eikenberry pointed out that people are less likely to leave a job if they have good leadership. Less leaving equals less turnover. He also stressed how it may be hard for an organization to reward each employee with monetary compensation all the time, but that helping them become more effective leaders is a reward in and of itself. He went on to say that when leadership development processes fail, it does not mean that there was a major catastrophe. It may simply mean that we did not get the results we were hoping to achieve. And that is often enough to feel like the whole process failed.
“Training is an event but learning is a process”. Remember that phrase as it will come in handy. Event-based development processes fail because they are just that – an event. To truly learn or improve your skills, one must develop a process over time. The process must also be integrated and engaging with senior leadership. Lastly, any leadership development process must be broadly applied.
Next, Eikenberry said, “Extraordinary potential exists in all of us. With the right environment, resources, skills and knowledge, ‘ordinary people’ can produce extraordinary truths.” Let your participants engage in the process. If they are a part of the change, they will be more receptive than if they feel the change was done to them. A successful process is focused and has leadership buy in. All people are engaged. Now what? These pieces below are a vital part of the process:
- Feedback and benchmarking
- Consistent selection
- Interactive design
- Accountability
It is so important to know what success looks like so your employees know when they have achieved it. They also need to know their expectations. 360 Assessments have been used far and wide to help provide feedback and can be very effective. That is where the rest of the pieces come into play.
- Coaching and mentoring
- Action planning
- Application focused
- Flexible
A 360 Assessment without a coach or a mentor is not worth doing at all. You simply cannot be a leader without a coach. All top performers have them – in the music industry, the sports field, and entertainment world. To be a good leader, one must have a good coach. In this webinar, Eikenberry also discussed how to improve existing processed and how to create remarkable leaders now.
To best understand these concepts, you may view the archived webinar here. Listen, learn, take notes and share with any coworkers that might learn from this learning event.
