It's time to know - and grow - the velocity of your leadership development program.

Let’s talk about the velocity of leadership development, because despite its unquestionable impact on the employee experience and business outcomes, no one seems to mention it.

In fact, many talent professionals don’t seem to be measuring the speed and direction of their leadership development programs at all.

It’s time to remedy that – particularly because that velocity is measurable, actionable, and critical to your company’s success. Here we review why and how to improve your leadership development program with a quickness!

There's a need for speed in leadership development.

The data are clear – good leaders produce engaged employees, and engaged employees drive business outcomes.

Indeed, the speed of your leadership development program affects every performance metric at your company.

This is why the element of speed is so important. The faster your leaders develop effective leader behaviors, the faster your company will:

• improve turnover
• reduce shrinkage
• close more deals
• raise customer loyalty
• decrease absenteeism

These are just a few of the benefits that come with building more effective leaders, faster.

What gets measured gets faster.

How long does it take your leaders to go from:

• energy suck to engagement superstar?
• stone cold to approachable and empathetic?
• culture drain to core value champion?

If you have no idea, you’re not alone. Most talent leaders depend on infrequent, largely qualitative measurement tools like monthly 1:1s or traditional assessments that make it hard to pin down numbers. Meanwhile, their leaders are hemorrhaging employees and fumbling productivity goals.

With better data comes better insight into your leadership development program, feed what makes it tick, and remove what holds it back.

Here are 4 steps to quicken the pace of your leadership development program.

Step 1:
Record your baseline.

Determine which leadership habits you care about measuring. Then, collect anonymous feedback from each leader’s coworkers on how frequently the leader reflects observable behaviors related to key leadership habits.

Tip: Past assessments could be used here, or feel free to consult our sample leadership habits for key leadership habits like Trust, Communication, Collaboration, and Inspiration.

What's a leader habit?

Leader habits, or competencies, translate key leadership habits into observable, intuitive behaviors that leaders can begin emulating right away.

Step 2:
Measure frequently.

Continue collecting anonymous feedback from each leader’s coworkers on how frequently the leader reflects observable behaviors related to key leadership habits.

The collection should be frequent – ideally, on a weekly basis.

Tips for a successful continuous feedback process

• Make it anonymous. Feedback providers will feel more safe to be honest if their names aren’t tied to their input.
• Make it fast and easy. No writing allowed! Feedback providers are more likely to submit feedback if it’s easy to do.
• Work smart, not hard. Ask feedback providers how frequently the leader exhibits each behavior in the blueprint. This way, the leader can immediately see which habits they’re getting right, which have fallen into their blindspot, and exactly how to fix it.

Step 3:
Make the data accessible.

There are 3 obstacles to behavioral change:

• Leaders don’t know that they need to do something differently.
• Leaders don’t know what they need to do differently.
• Leaders don’t know how to do it differently.

Too often, talent managers keep feedback data in a place that isn’t accessible by the leaders themselves, which artificially slows the momentum of their own leadership development programs. Break this cycle by granting each leader access to their feedback data so they know what to work on at all times – not just after an assessment or performance review.

Step 4:
Assess, predict, and iterate.

Begin drawing connections between how the company performs as leadership improves – for example:

• the speed at which your leaders improved specific leadership habits and how employee engagement shifted during that timeframe
• the time it took to improve specific leadership habits and how company performance shifted
• which habits have the most impact on employee turnover, loyalty, and absenteeism

Then, double down on the most impactful habits by fine-tuning their habits and communicating their importance.

Remember - as with all things talent development, observable behavior change and effective measurement is key.

By implementing a feedback process that is frequent, accessible, and psychologically safe, you can operationalize faster behavior change – and communicate its impact on the business – for the leaders at your organization.

To learn how Rhabit builds feedback cultures that everyone loves, book a time with a Rhabit expert today!

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