Driving leadership capability

- Leadership development done well does not just impact learning and development; it also helps organisations achieve stronger performance on their key performance indicators (KPIs).

- Through a blended approach to leadership training, more individuals get the opportunity to show their leadership capabilities and progress within the organisation.

- Learning technologies play a vital role in the successful development of leadership capabilities. Organisations that use learning technologies and tools to develop their managers and leaders tend to facilitate online communities and learning groups, which provide learners with continuous access to knowledge and support at times convenient to them.

- Underpinning the successful use of learning technologies within a blended approach to leadership training is the capability set of the L&D team. 

Leadership development is vital to an organisation’s success. Therefore, it is little surprise that the majority of development budgets focus in this area. However, with 49 percent of L&D practitioners saying that leadership development is not viewed as a management priority, L&D needs to fundamentally transform its influence and build partnerships with senior leaders in order to drive necessary change.  

“There is clear evidence to suggest that innovating and democratising leadership development can uncover hidden talent and accelerate leadership capability. With 45 percent saying there is a significant lack of knowledge in L&D about the potential use of technology in leadership development and 45 percent saying they face a cultural bias towards classroom training, L&D professionals will continue to face challenges unless they increase their level of influence and capability across L&D to drive impactful and innovative approaches.” Jane Daly, Chief Insights Officer, Towards Maturity.

Organisations that successfully use learning technologies when developing managers and leaders are 20 percent more likely to enable their leaders to access support at the point of need and improve talent management. Additionally, they are 30 percent more likely to increase learning access and flexibility.

High performing organisations that are successful in developing their people into becoming leaders and managers are substantially more likely to have a learning strategy along with a blended learning approach, support workplace performance, develop digital content and have a solid technology infrastructure. Organisations in the top 10 percent of the transformation curve with the most effective learning strategies also have a propensity to actively democratise and engage a broader audience of leaders, creating a leaner-centric approach.

Heide Abelli, SVP, Content Product Management at Skillsoft, commented: “The role of leadership development is more critical than ever in today’s fast-paced, exponentially-changing, technology-enabled business context. From this research, Towards Maturity has validated that large-scale leadership development efforts must be radically democratised and aligned to business strategies to meet evolving organisation-wide goals and strategies.”