May 23, 2011. Paul Hixon
Key leadership skills can be trained in just about any circumstance. The problems usually arise with broadening the planning horizons that senior leaders and executives need to focus on.
In this post I’ll show you three key areas where training of new leaders should focus.
The starting point in strategic leadership is your company objective. This is normally the business plan and mission/vision statement. Leadership can risk the chance of losing sight of these goals and focusing on day-to-day matters which perhaps do not advance the overall objective. One good example of company goal is the Google marketing strategy to index/bring together the entire world’s data (which directs all project work).
These goals also need to be continuously communicated to lower levels in the organization. All project decisions and evaluations should keep the company goals in mind and assess what activities are going to progress the firm toward these goals.
This is not to say that the goals, or the goal posts, cannot change. The second necessary skill is staying aware of the external market. You should always know what your competition is doing and if there are any potential new entrants to the industry which could introduce some new technological leap.
The external market does also include your customers. Research and data should be continuously analyzed to see what trends in customer needs exist. These feed into defining the benefits and features offered as part of your firm’s value proposition & goals.
The third of the leadership skills is the easiest for many new leaders to take on board and involves being aware of how internal resources will help your company excel. This is a standard activity for junior managers or project managers but executive leadership need to take a broader view to look at what weaknesses you have in resourcing, what training you may need to consider and new protocols to incorporate.
Updated May 23, 2011. Published January 25, 2011. Paul Hixon
