Five Ways to Improve Your Leadership Development Program Online By David Shoemaker
Leadership development is an activity that improves the quality of leadership in a company, organization, or a single individual. Leadership development programs can range from an MBA degree to executive retreats (think high ropes courses) to online leadership certificate programs. Online leadership training can be very effective and is often the best option for a company to develop its leaders. Why Leadership Development is Important: Leadership development via online leadership training is a high priority and increasing as an overall percentage of training delivered in many organizations because of several positive business benefits: • Financial return (better leaders means higher profits) • Employee engagement and retention (leaders learn how to be an effective boss and foster a supportive work environment) • Building bench strength (the "substitute" leaders develop their skills and can step up in times of need) • Strategic and competitive advantage (leadership is critical to the success of a business) • Enhanced productivity and faster resolution of problems (leaders learn how to be efficient and add value) • Continuous innovation (leaders learn how to pursue new ideas) • Organizational agility (leaders are prepared to adapt a company / employees to ever-changing mar-
ket conditions) Leaders drive performance, and the higher the leader's position and the broader the scope of his or her responsibility, the greater the impact that individual can have on an organization. So while it may be difficult to measure exactly now much leadership development programs contribute to something like financial return, it is generally accepted that good leaders and managers produce higher performing teams that produce better results. Demographic shifts are also forcing companies to focus on their leadership development efforts. With almost 80 million baby boomers approaching retirement in the next decade, there will be significant impact on the pipeline of available leadership talent, and the cost of recruiting and retaining competent managers is going to increase. For many companies, online leadership certificate programs are a high priority and are increasing as an overall percentage of training. Online leadership training is becoming one of the top ways to conduct leadership development. Online Learning Improves Leadership Development Programs: Online learning, as part of a comprehensive leadership development initiative, can be used to increase program effectiveness in several important ways: • Extending & Targeting Your Reach (development doesn't have
28 RuralLeaderMagazine.com | NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015
to be in a classroom) • Consistent & Contextualized (consistency across many different groups of participants) • Go Fast...Speed to Competency (employees are away from their jobs for a shorter period of time; online leadership training can also be used as a ramp-up for in-person training) • Go Slow...Learn, Act, Reflect (online learning is continuous) • Use Social Learning & Build Networks (online learning can prepare leaders to manage global teams and other "blended" team environments) Online learning takes leadership development from a series of disconnected events to more of a continuous development process. Online leadership training and online leadership certificate programs are both great options to pursue leadership development for your company. For more information on these programs you can do an Internet search for whitepapers on 5 Ways to Improve Your Leadership Development Program... Online.— About the Author David Shoemaker is Vice President of Learning Solutions and Innovation at eCornell. For more information on online leadership certificate programs, online leadership training, or eCornell, please visit http://www.eCornell.com
What you do matters. @RuralLeaderMag
