How to develop powerful leaders using e-learning
The success of an organization rests on the quality of its leadership. Leaders––whether within teams, departments, or c-suite––set the tone, culture, and ultimately the success of your organization. In their book Extreme Ownership, Jocko Willink and Leif Babin explain that there are no bad teams, just bad leaders. “Leadership is the single greatest factor in any team’s performance. Whether a team succeeds or fails is all up to the leader. The leader drives performance—or doesn’t.”
“Just like any employee, leaders need to be developed to perform at their jobs, and your organization can remain competitive. What’s more, post-pandemic hybrid working models require new leadership competencies that not many South African leaders have mastered,” said Michael Gullan, CEO of G&G Advocacy, South Africa’s innovative eLearning provider aimed at providing innovative solutions to corporates to upskill and reskill their employees.
“The good news: e-learning can assist in closing the skills’ gap and eliminating the need for time-consuming face-to-face training which, let’s face it, can be clunky, expensive, and not that fitting with today’s hybrid working life,” Gullan added.
Advantages of leadership development
An effective eLearning leadership program is advantageous for the following reasons:
It accommodates diversity, such as working mothers, remote employees, people with caregiving responsibilities, or people with disabilities.
It’s more inclusive and accessible and can include people from different offices and time zones as well as remote workers.
Start with the outcomes
Gullan suggests that any successful e-learning program should start with a clear understanding and documented outcomes of where you want your training to take your leaders and suggests some outcomes for your online leadership development program.
The ability to create a strong leadership succession plan by developing leadership competencies within aspiring leaders.
Developing skills to enhance their team performance.
Developing the know-how to assist their teams in reducing stress, creating growth opportunities, and developing a more inclusive workforce.
Increasing and enhancing employee engagement.
Increased business performance by aligning leaders with your organization’s needs, strategies, and tactics.
5 Steps for Successful Leadership E-learning
Step 1
Develop an assessment plan, and don’t leave it as an afterthought as it should be the thing that drives the whole programme. Identify the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to be used to evaluate success. You can use objective measures, such as rates of change, number of innovative ideas, plans implemented, and growth metrics.
Step 2
Ensure your leadership e-learning is actively supported by the executive team. Include live sessions, such as webinars, as often as possible. This will challenge and inspire aspiring leaders to see what’s possible.
Step 3
Understand and align with your organization’s goals, strategies, and tactics. Ensure you’re developing competencies that your leaders will need to achieve your goals and be ready for future challenges in your industry.
Step 4
Include soft skills, such as upskilling leaders to create positive employee experiences. This will nurture a sense of belonging and help employees to feel valued.
Step 5
Remain agile. Be sure to frequently evaluate your leadership e-learning programs so you can do more of what works and less of what doesn’t. You don’t have to make radical tweaks, but keep them incremental and only make updates to enhance the whole program.
Essential components to include in your leadership e-learning
Because of the nature of hybrid working, it’s essential to include the following innovative leadership learning strategies,
Coaching, mentoring, and constructive feedback loops
Experiential learning and simulations
Skills practice by creating safe practice zones so your leaders can practice, fail, and iterate
Personalized learning allows leaders to select from a few learning paths according to their needs and desires.
Microlearning, via Content Capsules™ that are short, sharp, and focussed on today’s time-sliced adult learner
A robust e-learning platform that is tailored to your organization and learning content and that provides a dashboard that reports your leader’s learning journey.
“Leaders set the direction, tone, and culture of your organization, and a toxic, weak, or bureaucratic leadership and culture can set you back years from achieving your goals,” Gullan concluded. “When continually developing your existing leaders and nurturing aspiring leaders, you will achieve a healthy, purposeful leadership team and create a solution-focused culture of innovation. Information and training are power. It’s up to your e-learning to unlock it.”
