Leadership Consulting is an objective and confidential way to increase the leadership development of your senior management and their teams.  Most senior level managers will not talk about their biggest challenges with those inside the organization because it is career suicide.  Talking with a external professional whose expertise is in leadership consulting, is a safe way to increase your leadership skills and your results.

Here are the 3 Best Practices Leadership Consulting Practices To Look For

1.    Organizational Assessment

It’s important before you start to develop leadership in your organization to do an assessment that gives you the big strategic picture of the current state of affairs.  Doing a SWOT analysis is a perfect way to start leadership consulting in which you assess the organization’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.

2.   Programs to Develop Your Leaders

Solid leadership consulting practices include a wide array of development options once you know what the issues are you want to address.  Leadership development options might include coaching, management training, mentoring, and on-the-job development opportunities. Organizations often need to put in place many leadership programs at the same time in order to make the biggest impact.

3.   A Skilled Facilitator

Make sure you use a skilled and experienced facilitator to help you develop leadership practices in your organization.  Find one that has good references and ask them for examples of organizational work they have done that is similar to what you need.  I just did work last week for a hospital whose Chief Medical Officer hired me to do a team facilitation with the senior hospital administration because I had good previously done something similar at another hospital.

Do enough due diligence to find the right consultant to work with to provide leadership consulting for your leadership team.  Make sure you know what you are buying and select your consultant carefully.   Most people don’t know much about what makes good results-focused leadership consulting and waste thousands of dollars.

What kinds of things have you done to make your leadership consulting using an external consultant successful?

Most people don’t know much about what makes good results-focused leadership development seminars, and eagerly pay thousands of dollars for something that may not provide them or their organization with the benefits that they’re actually looking for.

Here are the Most Important 3 Reasons to Beware of Leadership Development Seminars

1. 1.    They are poorly designed.

It’s important to find leadership development seminars that are designed with adult learning theory as a foundation so that you actually learn something versus just getting jazzed up that you are in a classroom.  The program should be filled with individual assessments, partner exercises, small and large group, all designed to have you learn new behaviors and have them stick.  Don’t sit in a classroom all day listening to an instructor talk at you; it’s proven to be ineffective as a learning technique.

2.   They don’t always teach what they claim.

Make sure before you select a leadership development seminar that it has clearly defined learning objectives that match your learning goals.  Read the fine print.  Make sure what they are teaching is what you want.

3.   People Don’t Implement What they Learned

Most people go to a leadership development seminar and once back at work do things the way they have always done them.  The way to avoid this pitfall is to make sure the seminar has post work that is part of the formal program.  Post work is designed especially to have you integrate your skills back at work.  One great post work activity I like to see is, “In the next 30 days, teach a colleague or direct report 3 main ideas that you learned in the program.”  When we teach something to others, we are more likely to learn it more deeply ourselves.

Select your leadership development seminars carefully.  Not all are created equally from a quality standpoint.  Get some references as well.  Talk to past clients who have attended in the past and determine if this one is the right one for you or for your organization.

What kinds of things do you look for when you are evaluating the right kind of programs for yourself or for your organization?

View this 7 step checklist for unlocking your leadership potential and performance. http://www.visionquestconsulting.com/free-guide-leadership-checklist.html

As the old saying goes, “Leaders aren’t born – they’re made”. Though their natural leadership abilities may have earned your employee a promotion to management status, leadership coaching will nurture these skills and develop an effective and capable professional. Here are three key ways that your new manager will benefit from executive leadership coaching.

1. Self Awareness
As an individual makes the transition from a regular employee into a management position, they may experience some identity issues. It can be difficult to take on a new role, especially one where former peers are now subordinates. Executive leadership coaching will teach your new manager how to best handle any situation. An expert coach will work with your staff to help them discover their own personal leadership style, expand their strengths, and improve upon their weaknesses. For recently promoted females, you may also find that they will benefit greatly from formal leadership development programs where they learn new skills and competencies essential to leadership.

2. Listening Skills
One of the primary skills of a good leader is the ability to listen. Previous to their promotion to management, your employee may not have been accustomed to listening to other peers in quite the way they need to now. With quality leadership coaching, your new manager will learn to listen both to what is being said, and what is being implied, and how to read the politics of any given situation.

3. Organization
Faced with increased responsibilities and many day-to-day responsibilities and challenges, managers, especially new ones may find it difficult to stay organized. A coach can be very helpful to teach techniques and systems to stay organized and to prioritize the most critical work deliverables. Coaches also follow up regularly to hold your people accountable for accomplishing the tasks that they have identified as most important.

Do not make the mistake of sending your new manager into the ring without help. Professional coaches will give your staff the executive leadership training that they need to truly succeed. The first 90 days are especially critical. You will find that with expert coaching, your employees will bloom and help to grow the business beyond what they can do for themselves given the same amount of time. The results speak for themselves.

Get your staff on their way to becoming great leaders, by reading up our our executive coaching guide for leaders.