7 Development Areas for Leaders That Will Actually Make a Difference
If you search for a training plan for leaders or must-have leadership skills, you get a bunch of surface-level information with skills like communication, persuasion, and problem-solving. While these skills are essential, it's pretty high-level or generic information to plan any meaningful training.
To solve this issue, we went one layer deeper. We researched the high-yield, gold-standard areas of development that truly amplify leadership.
This article will discuss:
- What are the most strategic leadership development areas, as per industry reports.
- Why you should prioritize upskilling your leaders in each of these areas.
- Whether there are any shortcuts to planning a leader's upskilling.
For every leader who's ever felt the weight of their role and the desire to do more, be more – this is for you. Get ready to unlock leadership that makes a real difference.
🌱 7 High-stake leadership development areas
During our research, we found the 2023 Leadership Development survey by Training Magazine, where more than 2200 Learning and Development professionals gave their inputs.
The leadership competency model is vast, and this survey narrowed down on crucial leadership skills.
Here are our top 7 picks from the survey results.
💰 Business and financial acumen
A leader must understand the business before even getting into the nitty gritty of managing people or making decisions. For that, they need to develop business acumen. It is the understanding of the workings and operations of a business. And it isn't a common skill.
Dana Ginn, Chief Operating Officer at Gotara, says, based on their research, 75% of managers lack business acumen.
And further, leaders need to get a grip on the numbers as well (at least at a high level) so they understand where the business generates revenue.
Skills required: Business acumen, financial acumen
How is business acumen a strategic leadership development area?
Business and financial acumen help leaders to make informed decisions as they are aware of:
- organizational functions and goals;
- market conditions;
- financial indicators;
- potential opportunities;
- possible crises.
How to develop these skills in existing (or aspiring) leaders
You can help leaders at your organization develop business and financial acumen by:
- Being transparent on the financial aspects of the company.
- Conducting business education and training programs.
- Encouraging cross-functional projects where leaders get insights into different departments of the organization.
- Helping them find a mentor or coach.
- Creating networking opportunities with peers in the industry.
- Providing regular resources that help them keep up with industry trends.
- Encouraging interactions with customers so they understand the problems and consumer expectations first-hand.
🧠 Adaptive thinking and problem-solving
After the leader decides on the problem, getting their hands dirty and finding how to solve it is essential. That's where problem-solving skills help. It helps them to identify possible solutions.
Secondly, the market and business priorities vary from time to time. Accordingly, the solutions to any problem may change as it has to keep new conditions in mind. Sometimes, the problem itself may change altogether. Adaptive thinking helps leaders work on problems in fluctuating times.
Skills required: problem-solving and embracing change
Why are adaptive thinking and problem-solving strategic leadership development areas?
Leaders need problem-solving skills to evaluate solutions and find the best fit. Further, as priorities shift, they should be able to cope with changes and lead the work while staying organized and helping the team.
How to develop these skills in existing (or aspiring) leaders
You can help your workforce develop problem-solving and change adaptability skills by:
- Assigning demo projects or internal projects.
- Scheduling a change management training.
- Encouraging leaders to take the lead on any change initiatives.
➡️ How can leaders be resilient in times of change? Assign them this micro lesson on change leadership.
💡 Strategy development and alignment
After business acumen, the next critical skill for a leader is the ability to think long-term and accordingly decide in what direction reporting teams to head on. A C-suite leader will finalize the priorities at the organizational level, department heads at the department level, and the first-level managers will determine at the team level.
Once they have set the priorities, another essential skill is bringing the team on the same page. Ensuring the team understands the plan and their tasks.
Skills required: Strategic thinking, organizational alignment, persuasion, and delegation
Why are strategy development and alignment a strategic leadership development area?
We reached out to an industry leader who is currently a director of strategy at a data analytics company and has led multiple startups in the past. He said the biggest problem for leaders is finding which problem to solve.
"There are always 10000 things to be done at any time, but you will have a bandwidth of 5. Then which 5 to pick on? Most people approach with a solution-first mindset. As soon as they get the problem, they focus on solving it. But it is first important to find which problem to solve," he said.
Strategic thinking helps managers prioritize which problems to solve first and guide their team in the right direction.
How to develop these skills in existing (or aspiring) leaders
You can conduct a mix of training and social learning exercises for leaders to help managers develop these skills. These could be:
- Involving upcoming leaders in organizational goal-setting and strategic planning exercises.
- Giving a demo project and asking them to create a vision and strategy for it.
- Involving them in initiatives where they form the entire strategy and build and align their teams.
- Conducting succession planning and making potential candidates shadow a leader.
🤩 Creating engagement
Next, any leader has to keep the workforce engaged to work together. Gallup identified 12 major drivers of an engaged workforce. Three important drivers from the list were:
- clear expectations;
- having a coach;
- a good relationship with a supervisor.
A leader is expected to set clear expectations for employees. Setting expectations alone isn't enough, though. Further, leaders have to:
- Coach employees to meet those goals.
- Discuss future development goals of employees and accordingly finalize their development plan.
- Continuously coach employees to help them reach the next level.
Skills required: Communication, realistic goal-setting, coaching, and ability to build relationships
Why is creating engagement a strategic leadership development area?
Managers account for at least 70% of the variance in employee engagement scores across business units.
Clearly, leaders drive entire employee engagement. If leaders do not have the necessary skills, it can send the whole team's productivity for a toss.
Apart from the engagement aspect, having managers who are coaches also positively affects the following:
- company performance;
- customer service;
- employee retention;
- work culture.
How to develop these skills in existing (or aspiring) leaders?
You can help your managers become effective coaches by:
- Conducting training on communication and coaching.
- Planning workshops on goal-setting.
- Helping them get a coach.
- Bring managers together in a cohort where they practice different coaching situations, like setting goals, giving critical feedback, and more.
➡️ Google says coaching is the #1 skill of an effective manager. Get a 6-step roadmap to help your leaders gain coaching skills.
🧘♂️ Emotional intelligence skills
Further, to engage a team in the long run, a manager has to understand them. And for that, they need emotional intelligence. It is the ability to understand and manage one's own emotions and the emotions of others. It helps to build positive relationships and navigate difficult situations together.
Skills required: Active listening and emotional intelligence
Why is emotional intelligence a strategic leadership development area?
Barnaby Lashbrooke, Founder and CEO of Time Etc says when he first started his leadership journey, it took him a while to understand that what matters to him may not matter to employees.
Emotional intelligence helps leaders to put themselves in team members' shoes and find what matters to them. As a result, emotionally intelligent leaders form better connections with employees.
Further, the leader is the captain of the ship. All team members reach out to them in difficult situations. When leaders understand their emotions and conduct themselves better in tough conditions, they set good examples for the team.
How to develop these skills in existing (or aspiring) leaders?
You can increase emotional intelligence in your leaders by:
- Aiming for a diverse workforce, so there are multiple opinions.
- Conducting assessments on emotional intelligence.
- Planning sessions on emotional intelligence.
- Designing role-playing and simulated business scenarios to practice listening skills and how to react in situations.
📈 Performance management
Setting goals and coaching employees to reach those goals is one part, and measuring results is the second part.
For the latter, leaders need to be good at performance management. It mainly requires the ability to:
- Give feedback: Sharing feedback in a constructive way with team members.
- Receive feedback: Getting feedback from team members without being defensive about it.
- Result orientation: Detaching themselves from the coaching process and measuring outcomes in isolation.
Skills required: Result orientation and giving/receiving feedback
Why is performance management a strategic leadership development area?
Employees look forward to feedback. 75% of employees say they want more frequent feedback at work. And it has a direct impact on engagement. 43% of highly engaged employees get feedback at least once a week.
Performance reviews are no longer a bad word. In fact, it positively impacts workplace productivity.
How to develop these skills in existing (or aspiring) leaders?
Help your managers get better at conducting performance review meetings by:
- Giving feedback training sessions.
- Planning social learning activities like group exercises and role play to practice giving feedback.
- Running surveys for measuring feedback effectiveness and collecting points to improve.
- Conducting 360 feedback where leaders also get feedback from direct reports and peers.
➡️ Check out our in-depth discussion of the core competencies for managers.
🌱 Self-development
Lastly, an underrated competency for leaders is self-development. It is the habit of continually improving their knowledge and refining their leadership style. Focusing on self-development also helps leaders stay updated with the latest business trends. It also promotes growth and innovation in the workplace.
Skills required: Self-reflection and growth mindset
Why is self-development a strategic leadership development area?
A growth mindset helps leaders to:
- Embrace any business challenges and help the team shine in moments of crises
- Learn from failures and help the team avoid making repetitive mistakes
- Promote their own as well as the team's growth
How to develop these skills in existing (or aspiring) leaders?
You can promote a growth mindset by:
- Encouraging to add learning goals as part of performance reviews.
- Promoting cross-team collaboration.
- Investing in employee reskilling and upskilling.
- Building a culture of looking at failure as a learning opportunity.
➡️ Are you seeking a more elaborate list of leadership skills and goals? Check out our compiled series on must-have leadership skills and 15 SMART goals for leaders.
🔍 3 Reasons why continuous growth is needed for effective leadership
Why should you make the effort to train your leaders in these skills? Here are the top 3 reasons.
Leaders need training to begin with
Gallup found that only 10% of people naturally have the talent to manage.
Still, at least 25% of managers get no management training.
To fill in the gaps, managers need to undergo training and have a development plan to begin their leadership journey.
➡️ Wondering how to create this plan? Feel free to use our free leadership training template and leadership plan examples to get started.
Technology and the market keep constantly changing
Leaders have to stay up to date with current trends. This knowledge empowers them to assess what will and will not work for their organization.
But Barnaby Lashbrooke highlighted that a leader must not get sucked into every hype, as a reflection of current conversations about AI:
"While it's probably going to change the working world as we know it one day, it's far from being useful today in a way that leaders might hope," he said.
Only by staying updated with technology can a manager can:
- Evaluate better solutions to problems.
- Decide which trend to hop on and which one to pass.
The work environment keeps changing
The work environment is changing.
Ilampooranan Padmanabhan, Solution Delivery Manager at Nets Group, says, "The remote work revolution has made managing teams across various locations a significant challenge. Leaders are grappling with different types of fatigue - Zoom fatigue, meeting fatigue, collaboration fatigue, and solution fatigue. In 2023, our mental stamina is being tested as much as our strategic acumen."
As the work conditions evolve, leadership style must also evolve with it.
➡️ Develop leaders and drive results with Zavvy
Defining the priorities for your leaders' development areas is complicated. Training them is another ballgame.
Our team worked with many industry leaders and an internal team of experts to break down the complexities of the process. Here is a simple three-step process to develop your leaders using Zavvy.
⚙️ Conduct leadership assessments and keep track of their current skills using our skill matrix.
🌱 Prepare a development plan for the required skill set using employee development software. You can create and assign your own courses, plan courses, and write down any developmental activity as a task.
💪 Give your team a wide range of third-party courses through our learning experience platform. 10000+ courses at their fingertips so they can learn at their convenience.
📅 Book a demo call with one of our experts to upskill your leaders.
❓ FAQs
What areas should a leader develop?
The seven key developmental areas for leaders are:
- Business and financial acumen
- Strategy development and alignment
- Adaptive thinking and problem-solving
- Creating engagement
- Emotional intelligence skills
- Performance management
- Self-development.
What are the 5 elements of leadership development?
5 Key elements of successful leadership are:
1. Strategy: Could weigh priorities and decide the right path for the team.
2. Alignment: Having effective communication skills and clarity so the leader can bring the entire team on the same page.
3. Coaching: Moving beyond the goals/results and contributing to the direct report's long-term growth.
4. Feedback: Giving constructive feedback and being comfortable hearing constructive criticism.
5. Growth mindset: Looking for growth opportunities even in failures for themselves and the team.
What are the 7 core skills of a leader?
The core skills of an effective leader are:
- Business and financial acumen
- Strategy development and alignment
- Adaptive thinking and problem-solving
- Creating engagement
- Emotional intelligence skills
- Performance management
- Self-development.
What are good developmental goals for a leader?
10 SMART developmental goals for leaders are:
1. Learning to give constructive feedback.
2. Building relationships within the team.
3. Becoming more adaptable to change.
4. Learning how to coach team members.
5. Becoming more comfortable with strategic delegation.
6. Improving systems for knowledge sharing within your team.
7. Enhancing emotional intelligence competency.
8. Enhancing communication skills.
9. Learning to recognize the team's efforts and successes.
10. Completing conflict resolution training.