In an organization, there are leaders and followers, both of whom should perform their jobs well to ensure the success of the team. But roles are also constantly changing, which means leaders must be good followers and vice versa. Thus, a leadership development plan template is crucial for any organization that wants a well-rounded workforce where everyone has sufficient leadership skills and can be relied on to command a team toward success.
What is the leadership development plan?
A leadership development plan is a structured approach designed to help employees gain essential leadership skills and competencies for effective team management. Customized to individual needs and team dynamics, this plan aligns with the employee's growth trajectory and the team they will lead.
What should be included in a leadership development plan?
There are a few different ways of creating a leadership development plan, and four major components are always included. These are the goal, the actual steps of the plan, the resources, and the timeline.
Goal
The objective relates to your desired outcomes from leadership development training. Specific aims may include enhancing self-discipline, honing listening skills, demonstrating personal responsibility, and improving time management. This section can also define effective leadership traits or list the skills inherent in a capable leader's repertoire.
Steps
With a clear goal in mind, the next stage is to draw up the steps you need to take to achieve the goal. Breaking down large milestones into smaller steps makes the goal more attainable.
Resources
While identifying your steps, you will also begin to know what kind of resources you would need to carry out the leadership development plan. These resources could include budget, time, training or coaching, or technology.
Timeline
A successful leadership development plan requires a well-structured timeline. It's essential to consider that employees will continue their regular tasks alongside the program. Given this time constraint, addressing high-priority goals initially is crucial, ensuring alignment with their regular work schedule. Achieving this balance is possible by creating a coherent timeline for the entire program. This strategic approach guarantees that leadership development is seamlessly integrated into work responsibilities, fostering efficient progress.
Why use a leadership development plan?
For any organization, maintaining an ongoing leadership development program offers numerous advantages. It not only enhances the skills of individual members, fostering competent leaders but also guarantees the continuous expansion and progress of the entire company.
Better work performance
The organization can expect better overall work performance by instilling leadership skills across the workforce. Departments led by competent managers would produce higher-quality output or generate more revenue.
Innovative solutions
A skilled leader can think quickly and come up with creative and effective solutions to any challenge, which is especially important in today's fast-paced business environment.
More employee engagement
Employees who work under a capable leader are happier at their jobs, feel more appreciated, and are, therefore, more engaged in their work. The organization will also have a higher chance of attracting top talent and a much lower chance of employee turnover because everyone just wants to stay.
More effective business strategies
Creating an organization's business strategies depends largely on input from its leaders. Through a good leadership development program, you can ensure that your leaders are perfectly capable of making the right recommendations and crafting the best business strategies to propel your enterprise to growth and success.
Of course, all these benefits can be more easily achieved using a well-crafted leadership development plan template. Some organizations create their leadership development plan, but the process can be tedious, and if you have never made one before, it can be quite daunting. Fortunately, Boardmix has a great ready-made development plan template that you can use.
How to use the leadership development plan template in Boardmix?
Using the Boardmix leadership development plan template is easy and does not require any special skills at all. You can open the template where, as you will see, everything has been structured and divided into clear sections. All you have to do is write the details in the corresponding sections. Thus, you can focus more on the actual content of your plan than on the setup and layout. You can easily customize the template to fit your unique needs if you need to add more sections.
