Gaining Clarity of Direction With Leadership Audits
By Leanne Crain
We often talk about improving leadership skills and continuing training as being critical in leadership development. While sometimes the type of training you require is very obvious, this isn’t always the case. How can you and your team decide what training you need to spend your money on?
Enter . . . the leadership audit. No, it’s not the scary government kind of audit, it is essentially a tool used to decide what your currently strengths are, and what areas could most use a little assistance.
Take us here at BizXcel for example. We are big believers in constantly training and making ourselves better, so at the beginning of the year we are asked to submit our training requests. To do this, we must first begin with a leadership self-audit. By asking ourselves key questions we are able to quickly recognize where our efforts and time must go. Examples of these questions would be:
What objectives are most important for your personally to attain in the next year?
How do these objectives line up with the team/organization objectives?
What strengths do you already have to assist you in reaching these objectives?
What challenges do you perceive will be stumbling blocks?
What skills would you like to achieve to help you along the way?
By taking time to step-back and look at things from a different perspective, while asking yourself probing questions, you will gain clarity and be able to recognize the best course of action for improving yourself and your team. For instance, if stress is a stumbling block to you, perhaps a course on personal resilience would be in order. Or if you falter at communicating your messages clearly, you can focus on improving your communication skills.
Audits can be done on an individual basis, and also on a team or organization basis. With simple adjustments to the questions you can even use an audit to assess the leadership skills of the team as a whole, and decide if perhaps a day of training on specific topics would be more effective. You will get a far better ROI if you not only invest in yourself and your team, but more importantly, invest WISELY in yourself and your team.
For more ideas on leadership, and for information on trainings, please contact Gary Gzik at ggzik@bizxcel.com.
Leanne Crain is a Marketing Assistant for BizXcel. Her background is marketing and tourism, and she has over 12 years experience in the sales and marketing field.
