Michaels & Associates

 

More often than not, you find great leaders among their fellow staff members and within their project teams. They seem to command respect, regardless of job title, because of their proficiency in leadership skills.

In fact, some of the most important leaders in a company are highly engaged with Learning & Development. These may be leaders within L&D working to design and develop training or leaders outside L&D working to ensure quality training is delivered and supported throughout the organization. As a colleague in the world of training and development, you may already be positioned for greatness.

Great leaders are so valuable because they draw upon multiple avenues of information and experience to discern patterns in their environment, which in turn, reveal solutions. Then, they use their skills to support and guide others to achieve. They fully appreciate change and understand that when individuals are being stretched, they learn. They know that if you're in your comfort zone, then you aren't growing. This broader view makes L&D leaders (at every level) essential to the overall success of an organization.

Learning + Change + Applying It = Leadership

To grow as a leader and advance your L&D department as a vital entity within your organization, there's so much you can do: engaging in mastermind sessions, joining friends in new activities, correcting unproductive behavior, and attending training, seminars and webinars that take you out of your comfort zone.

You may also consider these concrete steps to cultivating and harvesting your leadership attributes:

• Expand your mind with curiosity-inducing activities, such as mind-maps, visual thinking exercises and sessions with exponential thinkers in fields that are seemingly unrelated to your job.
• Read about and explore areas where there's no "right" answer, such as the arts and humanities, to help you learn to analyze and make decisions amid ambiguity.
• Build a team to create your next training program that includes at least one person who will challenge your thinking and expand the definition of what's possible.

Assessing Current Leadership Skills

Would you like to be a learning leader? The following assessment will help you to learn more about yourself as a learning leader and the characteristics you would like to improve. Assign a rating to each of the characteristics listed below to assess your skills as they pertain to your current leadership role within the organization or to the way in which you carry out your work in a non-leadership position.