Leadership
As a learning & development (L&D) leader, you are in a unique position. Part of your responsibilities may be to create the best leaders and, at the same time, you have your own team to lead and need to help them become great at what they do.
Most leaders wear three hats:
The Leader: As leaders, you inspire teams, set a clear vision and frame the work for them. The leader is a great communicator, a great listener, has strong emotional intelligence and builds a culture that promotes diversity of thought and psychological safety.
The Manager: In the role of the manager, you ensure that activities are being executed, that the team has necessary resources, that metrics are in place and being reviewed and that company processes are being done correctly.
The Coach: Finally come the role of the coach. You can set a clear vision and ensure your team has all the needed resources but if you do not develop them to be the best they can be, then the other two roles are meaningless. After all, it is your employees who are executing daily to drive the business forward. In the role of the coach, you are devoting significant time to helping your team members develop through ongoing coaching and feedback.
These three personas combine into one person: an effective leader, a leader with impact, a leader people want to follow.
So, what behaviors do you specifically want to embody to become this leader (assuming you are not already there)? Here are five core behaviors that you can focus on:
Great leaders are visionaries and great communicators. They have a clear picture of where they want to go and can communicate this vision in a way that motivates others.
As an L&D leader, your vision should encompass not just departmental goals, but how these goals contribute to the broader organizational mission and individual growth of team members. Remember that one key factor that supports employee motivation is when they feel connected to the broader company mission and how their role contributes to that. It creates meaning.
Emotional intelligence (EQ) is the cornerstone of effective leadership. It involves self-awareness, self-regulation, social awareness and relationship management. Leaders with high EQ are approachable, create a sense of safety (if the leader is not reacting, everything must be fine) and ultimately promote environments of psychological safety.
Trainers continually face challenging situations when dealing with internal stakeholders, and this can create great stress. When they come to you with these issues, your reactions make a big difference in how they feel. Maintaining emotional intelligence can significantly lower the heat and create a safe place to address the challenge and, at the same time, improve your trainers’ confidence.
Listening is perhaps the most underrated yet crucial leadership skill. Active listening involves fully concentrating on, understanding, responding to and remembering what is being said. It’s a key component of great coaches.
As an L&D leader, we address a lot of issues simultaneously and often feel the need to have and share all of the answers when approached by our internal stakeholders and our team members. Do not undervalue the importance of being a good listener. It’s a common human desire to want to be heard.
Give people your full attention and wait for them to finish speaking before you chime in. They will feel that you truly care about what they are saying and that you truly care about them.
Your employees want to know what is expected from them so that they can meet or exceed expectations. As a great leader, you need to work with your team members to align on SMART goals (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound) and be clear on what good looks like when executing against these goals.
Clarity promotes alignment and accountability. People feel safe when they know what to do, and this level of clarity also makes measurement easier. This does not mean you should dictate this to your team members.
Co-create this with them to promote ownership. This is a key component of what the manager persona does for their people.
The opportunity to develop professionally is identified as one of the top 10 things desired by all employees. One could argue that it is likely the most important thing you can do as a leader. The better your people are at their jobs, the better the business outcome.
But how much time do you, as an L&D jobs leader, actually spend coaching your people? How often are you investing time to watch them do their jobs and give them feedback on strengths and development areas? How good are you at establishing SMART goals that are focused on development areas for your team members?
Many times, as leaders, we brush through goal creation quickly and get so busy in our day-to-day meetings and deliverables that we are not devoting adequate time to coaching and developing our team members. Employees want to feel valued. They want to know that their manager is vested in their success.
As a leader, make the time, significant time, in coaching your team members around development goals that you have aligned around.
Becoming a leader who people want to follow is an ongoing journey of self-improvement and dedication to your team’s success. By cultivating these skills and characteristics, you can create an L&D environment that not only meets organizational goals but also inspires and empowers your team to reach their full potential.
Remember, great leadership isn’t about having all the answers — it’s about asking the right questions, listening intently and creating an environment where everyone can thrive.
Rich Baron is chief operating officer for WLH Consulting and Learning Solutions. Email Rich at rich@wlhconsulting.com or connect through linkedin.com/in/richbaron1.
