Low-Cost Leadership Training Program - Essay Example

Developing a Low-Cost Leadership- Training Program affiliations Developing a Low-Cost Leadership Training Program Most leadership programs fail because they are full of leadership theories and little practical relevance. Leadership development programs should be based on the knowledge that leadership development is a process and not a two or a three-day technical course. A leadership development program should be effective and cost-efficient. Companies that engage in constant employee training perform better than companies that neglect and avoid training their employees (Fairley, 2015).

In a survey conducted by Fairley (2015), indicated that leadership development was the number one professional challenge that start-up companies experienced. Developing an efficient leadership development program is crucial to the performance of an organization. The paper will analyze the best approach to developing a leadership development program outlining the pros and cons associated with it. The development of a leadership training program should be based on three stages. The first stage is where the company plans for the development of a leadership development program (Fairley, 2015).

The organization has to examine what it currently has in place so that they can gauge the efforts needed to train their employees. At this point, the organization needs to analyze the benefits of training their employees and the costs to be incurred. The organizational leadership training program should produce benefits that exceed the costs. The benefits should not be determined at the inception stage as the training achieves both short-term and long-term benefits. The next step in developing a low-cost leadership training program is the identification of employee characteristics.

Since not all employees can make great leaders, the organization should provide the employees an opportunity to form teams and through these groups employees with the potential to become leaders get identified (Johnson, 2013). Once the groups are formed, the organization should provide them with adequate infrastructural support to ensure the objectives they seek get accomplished. The employee morale is increased through achieving goals and objectives, and leadership qualities improved (Johnson, 2013).

Once the outline has been achieved, the next stage in developing a low-cost leadership training is practicing leadership development (Fairley, 2015). The training should include elements such as providing the leader with opportunities to achieve effective communication, conflict resolution, and time management (Fairley, 2015). Development of leadership abilities can be through coaching or mentoring where the employee is provided with direct attention to advance to the next level (Fairley, 2015).

The leaders should be invited to attend staff and managerial development activities to learn the organization’s business from the inside (Johnson, 2013). The gains of this method are that it is cost efficient, and resources do not get wasted on all employees. Since the organization identifies potential leaders through a self-regulative approach, resources are directed to the few team leaders and not the entire group. An additional advantage of adopting this method is that other employees accept the leaders since they view them as exceptional members of the team unlike in situations where the management selects these leaders.

Employees will regard these leaders with more respect and since they were acquired from outstanding members of the group the employees and the leaders work together to achieve organizational goals. Some of the disadvantages of adopting this approach is that other employees might engage in competitive activities that are not constructive for the organizational goals and objectives. The selection might also favor the wrong candidates for training based on their expertise and not on leadership abilities.

When forming teams, employees might group themselves in order of skills where the most successful employees come together. When this is the case, picking leaders from each group results to training low-achieving employees as leaders and not the suitable members. ReferencesFairley, S. (2015). 3 Steps You Can Use to Develop Leaders In Your Company. The Entrepreneurs’ help page. Retrieved from http://www.tannedfeet.com/bs_3steps.htmJohnson, T. (2013). 10 Low-Cost Ways to Develop Volunteer Leaders.

Tobi’s Nonprofit Management Blog. Retrieved from http://tobijohnson.typepad.com/tobisblog/2013/07/10-low-cost-ways-to-develop-volunteer-leaders.html