Data-driven discovery: How to identify your company's leadership development needs
What's in the Blog?
We’re here to share some of our favorite data-driven strategies to identify the leadership skills, behaviors, & mindsets that should be included on your Leadership Development & Training roadmap. Before just jumping in & developing your leaders, it’s important to take a step back & assess what your leadership development needs, gaps, & opportunity areas actually are. It’s important to be intentional in your training & development efforts so that you avoid wasting time, energy, & money on developing the wrong skills, or skills that just don’t move the needle at your organization.
Each company is unique & defines ‘successful leadership’ slightly differently. It’s important to first get clear on the leadership behaviors & mindsets that create successful leaders at your unique organization (your ideal state), and then assess where your leaders are currently at (current state). Once you have a clear picture of what is needed, you can then create a leadership development roadmap to get everyone from where they are now to where you want them to be.
Now you're probably wondering: “How do I do that? How do I define what it means to be a successful leader here? How do I determine what skills my leaders should be developing?” I’m glad you asked! Here are three of our favorite, tried & true ways to identify your company's leadership development needs:
1. Top Leader Analysis
Choose the Top Leaders at your organization. Ensure you’ve chosen at least five people. These are the leaders you wish you could replicate. Once you identify them, analyze them to identify the mindsets & behaviors that are driving their leadership success.
Our Top Leader Assessment phase consists of:
Self-Assessment: Short survey where the leader assesses their own strengths &weaknesses, & discusses what leadership skills they'd like to improve upon.
1:1 Meeting: We meet with each leader for a live discovery session. We get curious, listen, & pull out more of what makes them successful in their role.
Other Leadership Assessments: To evaluate their leadership success, we conduct other assessments that focus on behavioral styles, leadership qualities, strengths, communication styles, emotional intelligence, & personality types. This may also include Leadership 360 evaluations where direct reports & other managers assess the leader’s strengths & weaknesses.
Here are some of our favorite assessments to use:
Once the Assessment phase is complete, we compile a report of our findings which shows the mindsets, skills, & behavior traits that the top leaders possess. This outlines the definition of a top leader at your unique organization. You then have a blueprint of the skills to help your other leaders develop.
2. Keep/Start/Stop Session
Lead the stakeholders and leadership team through an engaging discovery session to learn what success looks like to them. Uncover the leadership mindsets, skills, & behaviors they deem essential for successful leadership at the company.
Here are our go-to questions for discussion & discovery:
How would you describe your culture in 3 words?
What 3 words would you like to use to describe it one year from now? They might be the same 3 words!
For your organization to be successful, what behaviors do you want your leaders to:
Keep doing?
Start doing?
Stop doing?
Who is a leader you wish you could replicate? What makes you want to replicate them?
You now have clarity on what leadership skills, mindsets, behaviors are important for the success of the organization from senior leadership’s perspective. Your leadership development strategy should focus on developing these skills.
3. Survey your Leaders
One of the best ways to assess your leadership gaps (i.e. the leadership skills, mindsets, & behaviors that your leaders should strengthen) is to simply ask your leaders. Ask them where they feel strong, where they don’t, & the skills they want to develop in the next year. Some of our go-to questions for this type of survey include:
Quantitative Questions:
On a scale of 1-5 (where 1 represents “I strongly disagree” and 5 represents “I strongly agree”), please assess yourself:
I am confident in my leadership.
I easily build trust with others.
I am confident giving feedback in a way that drives performance AND builds trust.
How often are you seeking feedback from others to improve your leadership?
(This scale is 1- rarely to 5- daily)I am comfortable receiving difficult feedback.
I am open to new ideas & embrace change.
I am confident in my ability to coach & develop my team.
How often are you recognizing those that you lead?
(This scale is 1- rarely to 5- daily)
Quantitative Questions:
1. At the end of the program you say WOW - Leadership training with The Perk was exactly what I needed, and everything I hoped it would be!” - What happened?
2. When it comes to your leadership skills, what do you know you do really well?
3. When it comes to your leadership skills, what do you know you want to work on/get better at?
Even if your leaders are GREAT, they might not feel confident in what they’re doing, so it’s always great to hear from the source what they want to intentionally work on. You create greater buy-in this way, too – your leaders feel heard & are more amped for the training because it is personally meaningful to them.
The 3 strategies we’ve shared above are part of our five-step process we follow to build successful leadership development programs (this is part of Step 2: Gather & Analyze Data).
We always say that building a leadership development program is a little like building a house. And let’s be honest: how often do you build a house completely by yourself? Most of the time, you bring in experts that can bring your vision to life. So if you need any help at all, please do not hesitate to reach out!
Pssst...I LOVE connecting with & growing my community! Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn - see you there! 🤗
