L&D efforts require leadership support

January – notably the month of change and improvement. The first month of the year for many feels like a clean slate – a time of looking for opportunities, refreshing visions and committing to new goals and objectives. Many businesses will be stepping into January with a new focus for the year ahead and will be committing to related learning and development opportunities for their people. The question is do these L&D programmes have leadership backing?

L&D efforts need support from the top

As experienced learning and development professionals we at People Business believe it’s important that L&D efforts receive support from the top.

People Business, Managing Director, Andrea Gregory explains why, “Whether it’s a series of coaching sessions for a cohort of aspiring leaders or it’s a year-long management development programme, it’s a commitment the organisation has made to the development and progression of their people. It’s an important investment of both time and money, and merits support from the top. It’s important leaders consider ways they can help support learning activity and drive the behaviour change they’re looking for in their people.”

“A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way and shows the way.”

John. C. Maxwell (an American author, speaker and pastor who focuses on leadership).

How can leaders support L&D efforts?

Here are our suggestions of how leaders can encourage and support learning and development efforts in 2023:

  • Attend L&D workshops – attend the full programme personally to visibly show the importance of participating or join for ‘guest slots’ to communicate the relevancy of the programme to the attendees’ roles.
  • Communicate importance of the work via video or email to employees – if you’re unable to attend in person or join virtual workshops, circulate a video message or a compelling email to the attendees to connect what they’re being asked to do to business strategy/values.
  •  Role model change – your people will be influenced by their environment so ensure you’re role modelling the behaviours you’re expecting to see from others. For instance, if you’ve sent a cohort of managers on feedback training, as you know creating an open culture is vital to the success of the business, then ensure you as their leader are regularly asking for and inviting feedback yourself.
  • Leadership commitment – make an upfront commitment to how you will personally be supporting the actions/commitments attendees have been asked to act on. Perhaps you will commit to further training or coaching support for participants, or you may make a point of checking in with them following the programme end date.
  • Provide time/space – L&D efforts should be helping people to contribute more or enhance performance, so provide the time and space for attendees to demonstrate what they’ve learnt. For example, you could allow individuals who attended training to chair part of a meeting or lead a session for colleagues who weren’t able to attend the event. Consider opportunities you can provide that help people showcase what they’ve learnt.
  • Recognise effort – ensure you are recognising those that are working hard to bring about the actions/change asked of them. It’s not just about spotting successful outcomes but also the effort an individual has put in to trying to achieve a particular change.
  • Provide necessary resources – make sure your people have the resources in place to create change. For example, if a cohort of managers have been sent on a workshop around bringing hybrid teams together and the organisation hasn’t invested in platforms which facilitate virtual collaboration, such as Teams/Zoom/Slack etc., those managers are going to struggle to implement the good practices shared with them.
  • Invite feedback – show you’re interested in progress by inviting feedback, take an active interest in how participants are finding sessions and what they’re gaining from the L&D programme you’ve invested in. Participants will appreciate you showing an active interest and will value the opportunity to share their thoughts/insights.

If you’re interested in finding out more about leadership coaching or the workshops we run, please do get in contact at info@peoplebusiness.co.uk or on 01932 874 944.