Bridging the Leadership Gap – Strategies for Developing Stronger Leadership Teams

Over the last two years, many of our clients have seen a great deal of turnover with employees and their leadership teams. It is not uncommon to hear: “We have an almost all-new leadership team.” Since organizations have so many new leaders in leadership positions, they are experiencing a leadership gap in some areas. A leadership gap is a lack of experience or skills in certain areas. As leaders take on new roles, it is natural to have a learning curve. The difference this time is the sheer number of new leaders and turnover in leadership positions over the last year that has created this leadership gap across many organizations. As a result, we have seen an upswing in requests to help leaders take their leadership skills to the next level. The number of leaders we are coaching and training has increased over the last year as our clients work hard to close that gap.

There are many ways to help your new leaders or leaders in new positions get up to speed quickly. Below are some ways to help your team gain the skills and confidence in their new positions.

Mentorship

Assigning a mentor is a great way to help new leaders and leaders in new positions learn their responsibilities and the ‘ins and outs’ of their job. This can be a peer in a similar position, an internal customer, or a senior leader. Typically, mentors are not the leader’s manager because we want them to have multiple resources. Providing leaders with a manager and a mentor to go to for help, ensures the leader has the needed advice and assistance to be successful in their new position. When a team member is new to the organization, a mentor can also help with the cultural norms and logistics of the culture. Some organizations have a mentorship program that assigns all leaders and staff a mentor to ensure their success.

Training

In general, great leaders are great learners, and providing leadership training is always helpful for leaders to hone their skills and fill in the gaps. One way to ensure your experienced leaders are not bored in repetitive training is to provide training in a series of leadership topics in different areas. If you break them out into a topic, leaders can attend them all, or just the ones that apply to them. If you have a large number of new leaders in leadership positions, training programs such as: ‘peer to supervisor’ are also helpful to leaders in learning their new responsibilities.

Executive Team Assessments

360 Team Assessments is a great way for organizations to take a read on the current skills. If you have some new leaders on your executive team, or if your team is not working as effectively as they could, conduct a whole team assessment for the entire executive team. Doing so will help identify the teams’ strengths, opportunities for improvement, and any skill gaps that the team may have. Sometimes we also incorporate a Relationship Strategies component when we report the results. This helps build camaraderie and helps leaders get to know each other better through shared experiences and learning each other’s communication styles and preferences.

Individual 360 Leadership Development Assessment

If you have a leader that is struggling as a leader, or one that wants to take their leadership to the next level, offering them a 360 Leadership Development Assessment will help them identify where they are doing well, as well as identify their leadership gaps. The assessment breaks the data out by the groups they interact with such as: their manager, direct reports, peers, and internal customers. This assessment level helps leaders gain a sense of self-awareness by seeing how the different groups they interact with see them as a leader. It will identify their strengths and blind spots of each group so they can build a targeted action plan to develop in these areas by working one-on-one with a coach.

Gain a Coach or Executive Advisor

Do you need an executive coach or advisor? When looking for an executive coach, it is usually project-based or a leader that needs some situational coaching. Executive coaches can also be utilized to assist in rolling out a new initiative or conduct a team assessment to gain insights into a team. An executive coach will help managers identify their strengths and areas for improvement to build their leadership skills. An executive advisor is a more strategic behind-the-scenes go-to partner for senior leaders looking for guidance with decisions and initiatives or looking to take their leadership presence to the next level. An executive advisor serves as a sounding board and trusted source for advice. Both options can help your leadership team gain the skills needed to succeed in the new or existing position.

Employee Opinion Surveys (EOS)

The word employee may be misleading here. When you conduct an EOS for the entire organization and incorporate questions around the employee’s supervisor, you have an organization-wide leadership assessment. The key is to break the data out by each team. Doing so will help you see where some leaders in the organization are struggling and where others excel. This will help your HR team identify where to focus their efforts instead of starting organization-wide. If you ask the right questions, you will have a clear picture of the kind of help each leader needs.

We know that 75% of an employee’s engagement and satisfaction at work directly correlates to their relationship with their supervisor. Utilizing the options above will help close the leadership gaps in your organization and help take your leadership team to the next level.