Summary
In today’s rapidly evolving business landscape, the demands on leaders have intensified, with increased pressure to drive transformational change while navigating uncertainty, burnout, and time constraints. ExecOnline’s research, titled: “The Skills Leaders Need Now”, published in October 2024, examines the critical leadership skills required to meet these challenges and the evolving approaches to leadership development that organizations must adopt.
The study focuses on the intersection of strategic, operational, people, and self leadership that is key to driving business transformation. ExecOnline’s research draws from extensive data, including surveys conducted with over 20,000 leaders, offering insights into the skills gaps leaders face, the impact of burnout on leadership development, and the critical role of coaching and flexible learning modalities that address the need for leadership development to be integrated into the flow of work. ExecOnline’s key recommendations for embedding these skills into daily practice are discussed, alongside the importance of continuous learning, personalized coaching, and integrating a holistic, multi-dimensional approach to leadership.
Key Takeaways:
Leader Engagement with Learning: 47% of leaders are too busy to find time for learning, while 34% feel too burnt out to engage effectively. Despite these challenges, 90% of leaders would engage more in leadership development if they had the time and opportunity.
The Intersection of Skills to Drive Business Transformation: All leaders need development in strategic, operational, and people leadership dimensions.
- Strategic leadership includes innovation, differentiation, customer value, and achieving organizational goals.
- Operational leadership includes productivity, efficiency, and driving for results.
- People leadership includes top talent development, retention, and motivation while growing organizational capabilities.
Self-Leadership as a Key Component: Self-leadership, often overlooked at more senior levels, needs more attention. Leaders must cultivate personal resiliency and motivation to sustain their ability to drive transformation and lead others effectively.
The Role of Coaching: A significant shift from traditional leadership programs to a combination of coaching and learning is emphasized. Coaching is effective in helping leaders connect learning with their real-world challenges. Coaching can often be a perfect jumping off point for a leadership development program, allowing for a fast start to assess a leader’s capabilities and provide program recommendations to address development areas.
Embedding Learning into Work: Leadership development programs need to be embedded in the workflow to ensure leaders have the time and ability to apply what they are learning. This method aligns with busy leaders’ schedules and increases the likelihood of skill application. In ExecOnline’s programs, a notable 79% of leaders report that they have implemented part or all of the Action Plan developed through leadership training, and 93% of leaders say they have applied what they learned in their jobs.
Audio Chapters:
- 01:52 – Identifying a Disconnect in Leadership Development
- 03:02 – The Leadership Skills Intersection
- 04:19 – The Skills Leaders Need Now
- 06:00 – A Foundation of Self-Leadership
- 07:19 – Putting Theory into Practice
- 07:37 – ExecOnline’s Recommendations