Sometimes your leadership team needs a quick dose of management skills. The experienced leaders in your organization might need reminders and those new to leadership need how-to skill building.
While it's always a good idea to layer in quick hit leadership lessons when you can, now is the perfect time to make it a priority. We are all facing these trends:
✅ Employees expect more and different support from leadership and their organizations
✅ Leaders are working hard to improve retention on their teams
✅ Leaders are looking for ways to keep the employees on their teams engaged and growing
✅ Leaders also want to thrive and love what they do day-to-day
✅ Work days are busier than ever and there is limited time for learning opportunities
You likely have several trends you've noted in your organization to add to the list - your own time and capacity is another good one.
There's often not the time and resources needed within your schedule to build a comprehensive leadership development program. But gosh, do I love a well-planned, blended learning & development curricula. They are important, and they play a key role in talent development strategies. I've run my fair share of leadership development programs, and appreciate how they build skills over time and create space to develop strong leaders.
➡️ Click on over to a series about leadership development at Southwest Airlines.
10 Quick Hit Leadership Development Topics
At times we need to quickly bolster a few skills or introduce new concepts that are needed immediately. I'm definitely feeling that urgency as I see my organization and others shifting into growth mode and dealing with the current talent environment. Supporting managers with engaging each member of their team effectively and with care is top of mind.
Start with these 10 topics to help leaders build a positive team environment, keep employees engaged and manage performance well:
Hosting career development conversations with your team
Having a stay conversation
Communicating corporate objectives
Interviewing without bias
Facilitating team meetings
Giving constructive feedback
Providing recognition
Delegating
Navigating the merit cycle
Setting goals for your team
Really, the list could go on… forever. But these 10 topics are a good place to begin, and I find are universal needs across all leadership teams.
10 Quick Hit Microlearning Ideas
Engaging the concept of microlearning is a great way to think about delivering quick hits of development. Microlearning is content delivered in a short burst.
"Microlearning means offering learners very focused, practical information to help them achieve a specific, actionable objective." - Elise Greene Margol, "Micorlearning to Boost the Employee Experience"
Microlearning plays an important role in learning & development programs and in building follow-up reinforcement. It can also be a handy way to repackage content already available into bite-sized pieces. Alternatively, consider curating resources from existing resources, such as brief, relevant eLearning modules already available i n your Learning Management System (LMS).
With the idea of reaching managers quickly and leveraging the limited time they have available AND leveraging resources already at your disposal and making the most of your time, take a look at these 10 ideas to deliver a quick dose of leadership development:
Lunch & learn discussion topics (virtual or in-person) - 10-20 minutes of learning with priority given to discussion and application
Team meeting topics for leaders to quickly review and facilitate discussions with their teams
Curated TED Talks or podcasts on a specific topic
Weekly topical email with a short learning segment and call to action
Infographic
Fireside chat with a senior leader - live or videoed
eLearning assignment from the LMS + discussion topics
Check in with your current learning partners to see what quick hit topics they are offering that you can leverage
Simple video featuring a 2-minute tutorial
Quick reference or one-pager
Which of these microlearning tactics will work for your organization? And which leadership skills are a learning priority for your management staff?
Today's call to action:
Join the community to share your approach to quickly develop the skills your leaders need to be effective in today's environment and stay engaged themselves. I'm feeling management skills might be a group project.
Endnote:
Margol, Elise Greene. "Microlearning to Boost the Employee Engagement." TD at Work, Vol. 34, Issue 1701, January 2017. ATD Press.