How to Measure the Success of Your Leadership Training Activity

Good common sense and countless other studies tell us that great succession planning is crucial for the long-term success of a company.

But despite it all, a lot of companies are still unsure whether their leadership development program is paying off. So, is there any way for you to measure it?

Well, the thing is, there is no one-size-fits-all solution for establishing a leadership training program. However, there are important steps that every organization needs in order to measure leadership development:

Define Leadership Competencies

You must identify specific leadership skills and behaviors that are needed to execute the strategy of your company carefully.

Whether its entering global markets, ramping up sales or building a corporate structure, you must think about the skills that are needed to be able to execute the initiative successfully. 

Align it With Business Needs

A mistake a lot of companies make is investing in a program before the problem is even solved, as well as the opportunity that it will leverage. 

Ask yourself these questions:

• What are the business opportunities out there?
• What are the opportunities that will help you improve business revenue?
• How can the leadership program help you save up cash and cut down on operational costs?
• What are the behaviors that needed to change within the company in order to leverage those opportunities? 

Only by answering these questions will you be able to decide what kind of program you want to provide. 

Identify Potential Leaders

After having your competencies established, you can start looking at the pool of your employees. Pick those who have high leadership potential.

After identifying who these potential leaders are, what they need to do is to be able to fit the competency mold that you have provided. This is to develop their leadership acumen. 

Identify Your Metrics

Far too often, when it comes to leadership development, you create the learning experience, roll it out, and show value through measurement. But this reactive approach does not often succeed. 

From the start, measurement should be all part of the plan and not just an afterthought. You need to determine your metrics. 

Create a Measurement Process

The next thing that you need to do is to target assessments at different stages of your development programs so that it is easier to keep future leaders on track. 

Several assessments will help you from decision-making, problem-solving, to emotional intelligence that can aid you in identifying one’s approach to innovation. 

By making 360 assessments throughout the program, you will know whether employees are learning from these leadership competencies, or whether or not you have to adjust. 

Conduct a Before and After Assessment

Your trainees should be able to complete a before and after assessment after the training is done, and then compare the results of what you have learned.

See if the actual knowledge and skills they have acquired are something that they can apply within their team.

If a gap is noticed, then one should take a much closer look at the development of the program. You can utilize assessment tools such as tests, skill-practices, role-playing, or simulations that will help grade trainees on both knowledge and skill acquisition. 

Follow-up evaluations can also be made within six months to a year to be able to know how well trainees can retain all the knowledge and information. 

Seek Other’s Feedback

When we mean post-training assessment, you will not be limited to what you can measure from the trainees alone. 

One of the best ways to measure the effectiveness of leadership training is to look for feedback from others who work closely with them and that includes their colleagues and supervisors.  

Evaluate Leadership Execution

You need to understand the extent of the new leadership skills and knowledge which impact your business.

Your team needs to be aware of the performance measures which impacts leader behavior, as well as the skills that you are training for.

Determine whatever it is that you want to measure, and look closely at the applicable benchmarks. For instance, what is the rate of employee turnover over the last couple of years? Did the sales number increase? Was there a recent improvement with customer satisfaction, lately?

Observe Behavior Change

By analyzing the changes of behavior after the training, you will know what parts of the training had the most impact, as well as identifying those that did not. 

Over to You

A lot of organizations fail to make strong, future leaders that will help navigate the company through tough times. It is also likely that the top talent, which is already short in supply, are looking for better opportunities elsewhere. 

It is high time that you step up and protect your company with inadequate leaders. This could negatively affect your company’s bottom line and your company’s legacy.

That’s why the right leadership training is so important. To know more, you can contact Quest Adventure Camp for inquiries.