Lately I’ve seen several articles about how the learning part of leadership development needs to change. Stephen J. Gill describes the current situation well in his post “The Self-Directed Learner.â€
“The most common way in which companies train employees today is basically the same as organizations have been training for the past hundred years (some would say thousands of years). Instructional designers, with input from managers and subject-matter-experts (SMEs) decide what employees should know and then “push†that content at the learners through formal training programs.”
Here are three ways that I think teaching and learning need to change to improve our leadership development programs.
Leadership development and learning from practitioners
Forget the professional trainers and hot-shot consultants. Put your top performers to work as trainers. You’ll leverage their expertise and help your developing leaders learn from the best. And if you use insiders your training will convey culture and not just skills.
Leadership development and measuring outcomes
Forget those “smile sheets†that get passed out at the end of most training. They don’t tell you a thing about whether learning actually happened. Instead measure outcomes after people have gone back on the job. Evaluate the learning based on positive behavioral change.
Leadership development and learning in the workflow
Stop thinking that most learning will happen in a classroom and start doing things to help people learn on the job. Leadership is an apprentice trade, so facilitate shoulder-to-shoulder learning. And provide resources for those self-directed learners Stephen J. Gill writes about.
