Upskilling and Reskilling Your Team on Leadership Skills

Having an effective leadership team is key for both individual and organizational success. The right leadership training can scale your current and future leaders to new heights. Investing in training your leaders has a trickle-down effect and can positively impact your entire team. In fact, investing in training leaders can have significant results, with some companies reporting 114% higher sales, 70% lower turnover, and 71% higher customer satisfaction.[i] Aside from the numbers effective leadership training and development can provide, here are a few other advantages:

Advantages of Leadership Training and Development

• Stronger strategic vision and alignment
• Better decision making
• Increased employee engagement
• Decreased turnover
• Higher productivity

1. Upskilling and Reskilling for Leadership Skills

Leadership training is crucial to making your organization’s leadership team as effective as possible. As they say, people don’t leave jobs, they leave bad bosses. One great way to address the leadership gap is by developing the current and future leaders in your organization through upskilling and reskilling. Organizations can start by identifying future leaders by observing specific character traits.  Oftentimes, people look at more tenured employees rather than focusing on the potential of new hires. In fact, 83% of businesses say it’s important to develop leaders at all levels, but only 5% of businesses have actually implemented leadership development at all levels.[ii] TTA has identified three tips to help you upskill the leaders at your organization at all levels.  

2. Identify Emerging Leaders

Identifying emerging leaders within an organization isn’t always easy. Being able to spot intangible qualities like “leadership potential” is something that is often overlooked. However, there are some characteristics that should be taken into consideration. Characteristics to look for in potential leaders are those employees who are strong communicators, team-players, who embrace change, take initiative, strive to achieve, are problem solvers, and have a growth mindset.

3. Develop Emerging Leaders

When developing leaders, it can be important to note that those who do not initially stand out as leaders, may have all the qualities of a great leader. For this reason, it’s important to make leadership development a priority across your entire organization, not just for a few key team members. Among many others, emerging and potential leaders should be mentored on how to effectively communicate, grasp operational agility, practice elements of decision-making, learn how to deal with difficult situations, and how deal with ambiguity. Through mentorship, employees may also discover other areas of strength which will add to their success as effective leaders.

Support Emerging Leaders

The best way to support your team is to treat them all as though they have the potential to be leaders. Both existing and emerging leaders can benefit from continual support by enabling them with the tools to apply their leadership skills in their everyday roles. By providing ongoing mentoring, coaching, and support in areas such as continued leadership training, diversity and inclusion training, and other key soft skills training areas, employees have the opportunity to learn, execute, and grow within the organization.

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[i] 7 Statistics to Know About Leadership Development in 2019
[ii] 22 Inspiring Leadership Statistics for a Successful 2023