Here’s a key paragraph from Darleen DeRosa’s post “3 Trends in Leadership Training and Development for 2016” on the 21st Century Leadership Insights blog.
“In the coming year, we’ll continue to see companies adopting new, innovative forms of learning. Here are three leadership training and development trends to keep on your radar for 2016 and beyond.”
Note that the quote mentions “development trends.” Alas, the post, excellent as it is, isn’t about development trends at all. It’s about training. Training is important, but it’s not development.
Leadership development is a people challenge
The challenge for development is to help people become better versions of themselves. The challenge for leadership development is to do that for people who aspire to leadership.
Training is part of the answer
Training is about learning skills and that’s certainly part of leadership development. But leadership development is so much more.
The people parts are the critical parts
The critical parts of leadership development are the ones that involve people and choices and activities. The important people are bosses and mentors and coaches and role models. The important choices involve assignments and which people to involve when. The important activities include coaching and feedback and debriefing.
Track those training trends. You may be able to improve your training effectiveness. Use technology for its ability to connect people to information and other people. But concentrate your attention and efforts on making the people parts of leadership development work.
