You’ve had a great year – so good that the boss or the board or the trustees have rewarded you. Two years off! On full pay!! And the same job, pay and conditions when you get back!!! (You always knew this was a great organization to work for).
The thing is, there is (of course) a catch. But it’s not too big a catch – you simply have to take responsibility for selecting the person who will replace you for these two wonderful years. So you draw up a person spec – you write up all the things that your replacement will need to be able to do, all the things s/he will know, and all the values you want him or her to have.
When you’ve finished, you look at the list. And guess what? The shortest one (by far) is the list that deals with what your replacement needs to know. What really matters are the skills and attitudes that s/he will bring to the role.
Knowledge and facts can be picked up. Anyone can learn them. But growing creative attitudes and developing useful skills is a challenge. Leadership training that works is training that works in these two areas, and trusts the leader who has been formed to pick up the knowledge that s/he needs later on.
So how do you develop these skills and attitudes? Only through practice, through relationships, through seeing good practice modeled, reflecting on it, being coached in it, and trying it out for yourself. Leadership training that works is training that challenges the whole person, shifts his or her perception of themselves and empowers him or her to adopt new attitudes and develop new skills. It treats each and every experience as the raw material for learning, and believes that that includes failure as well as success. All is material for growth and change.
That means that leadership training that works will be designed to fit the specific and particular needs of your organisation, not taken off the peg or shelf. Beware the pre-prepared salad mix with the short shelf life!
