Why You Should Never Stop Your Leadership Development | Who was the worst boss you ever had? I bet someone immediately came to mind. If they did, you’re not alone. According to Study Finds, twenty percent of workers disdain their boss.
If you’re the boss now, you’re probably hoping you’re better than that. You’ve taken enough leadership development courses to know what you’re doing.
Or have you?
Let’s discuss four reasons you should never stop your leadership development journey.
It Keeps You Humble
After you’ve been in the same role for a long time, it’s easy to become complicit. You get into a flow, things start running smoothly, and you say to yourself, “Hey, I’m pretty good at this!”
Next thing you know, your fourth-quarter sales dip below your expectations, or you get a complaint from a customer that you believe is totally unwarranted.
By developing leadership skills on an ongoing basis, you’ll always find room for improvement.
Anything or anyone that challenges your job performance won’t feel as threatening to your confidence because even the best of us make mistakes.
Find a leadership development program that takes you to the next level of growth.
It Keeps You Good at Your Job
As you get older, the generational gap between you and your newest employees starts to widen. They bring in all these weird new ideas that you think definitely aren’t worth considering.
Listen to them. They’re a fresh pair of eyes.
Ultimately, you have the final say, but developing leadership skills means keeping tabs on how well you actively listen. This harkens back to the above point about humility, as well.
New employees have some great ideas – sometimes better than yours even! Part of developing leadership skills means implementing those ideas.
It Keeps You Teachable
When was the last time you were the little guy? Maybe you fetched coffee for the suit-wearing executives with gold wristwatches. Maybe you sat hunched over Excel spreadsheets, punching in numbers for hours at a time.
Now you have people doing it for you.
Teachability is a key component for any leadership development program. Though you’ve grown leaps and bounds since those days, there’s never enough learning to do.
Just don’t forget to thank the little guy next time he takes your coffee order; seventy-nine percent of people quit jobs because they don’t feel appreciated.
It Keeps You Accountable
Perhaps one of the hardest things about being in leadership is the added weight of your decisions. The higher you move up, the more of a ripple effect your choices have on people below you.
A good leadership development plan will include ways to navigate the art of decision-making in ways that will benefit every level of the organization. This may be as simple as how you speak to people, or what attitude you exude.
No matter what you do, someone is always watching.
Start Your Leadership Development Journey Today
Now that you’ve read up on how crucial leadership development is, you can take your first steps toward becoming a humble and teachable leader.
You may just become the coffee guy’s favorite boss.
