Your leaders must be prepared today for the challenges of tomorrow, especially when faced with economic uncertainty. They must be ready and equipped to navigate unanticipated challenges, pivot, and forge a path ahead for your business. Leadership development programs make your leaders more effective by unlocking employee potential for higher productivity, increased customer satisfaction, lower costs, greater emotional intelligence, and new revenue streams, all of which are vital to thriving during a recession.
At Consilio, we have turned countless companies, from bootstrap startups to Fortune 100s, into businesses that thrive during a recession by priming leaders for what’s to come—even if what’s to come is The Great Unknown. Learn why leadership training is worth it in our blog.
Who Is Leadership Development Training For?
Leadership development training is for people already in leadership positions and high-potential workers who could become leaders in your organization, especially those who struggle with responding to unexpected business challenges, which is important when facing economic uncertainty.
This type of training also helps you identify high-potential workers who could evolve into effective leaders in your organization. Ask yourself, can you and your leaders:
- Shape the future as strategists?
- Consistently make things happen and execute?
- Engage your team and manage talent?
- Build the next generation and develop human capital?
If you answered No to any of these questions, then leadership development will be crucial for your business to survive and thrive amid economic uncertainty.
How Does Leadership Development Help Prepare For Economic Uncertainty?
From improving retention to driving innovation, there are several ways leadership training can help prepare your business for economic uncertainty. You need people on your team who are more than capable of leading through change and uncertainty. Let’s get into how a leadership development program can make that happen as we prepare for a recession.
Improving Talent Retention
One problem companies face is trouble both hiring and holding onto talent. The Great Resignation only gave employees more bargaining power and opportunities for freelance jobs and flexible work environments.
High-skilled employees no longer need the stability of an office job unless that job provides a clear path to advancement and growth. Top talent wants authentic relationships with their company that show them their leaders care.
You need to listen to their feedback and suggestions, especially from those on the frontlines, and avoid delaying essential hires or spreading the team too thin. Your employees also need meaningful work, a competitive culture, and room to grow and improve.
Through a leadership development program, you will learn how to provide these opportunities by crafting programs for employees to learn new skills or shadow co-workers in jobs, departments, or fields they have an interest in.
By attracting and retaining top talent, you will build and inspire high-performing teams, bolster team morale, engender greater customer satisfaction, and maximize productivity.
Improving Emotional Intelligence
A lot of the issues we see during these times are fear and overwhelm. A premier leadership development program helps people manage that fear and overwhelm by teaching them skills like risk assessment, prioritization, time management, and more. All of these skills become essential when the stakes are high!
Increasing Cost Savings
Many executives consider initiatives like leadership development an unnecessary expense when an economic downturn lurks on the horizon.
However, a lack of retention and high turnover is one of the surest ways for a company to hemorrhage money when you consider the cost of hiring and training new people, as well as the catastrophic cost of losing top talent.
“Top performers provide value through their work that is worth more than just their salary. When you lose your best people, this has a ripple effect that will touch nearly every aspect of your business.”
– Stacey McKibbin, CEO, Consilio
It’s significantly cheaper to develop, coach, and promote talent from within. By attracting and retaining better employees, you can also focus on more strategic parts of your business to maximize revenue.
When you invest in a leadership development program, your team will also feel like they are part of something bigger than themselves and, consequently, have higher levels of motivation, improving performance and boosting your bottom line.
Improving Communication
Another benefit of training is that it will teach your leaders how to better engage and communicate with their people. Leaders must be empathetic and understand their team’s concerns. Otherwise, inspiring them will be impossible.
Your people are worried about their security and will not prioritize your company’s well-being if their leaders don’t recognize what’s at stake for them. In doing so, however, it is important to maintain transparency.
Transparent communication builds trust with employees, but it can also help gain a clearer perspective between your organization’s goals and their job security when it comes to the role profit and KPIs play in decision-making.
If you want employees to buy in, you have to trust them with knowledge. Communicate regularly and be transparent about your company’s financial health, be clear about the state of your company, and ensure you explicitly communicate expectations.
“Learning to leverage DiSC insights is especially useful because it will give your leaders the ability to understand what motivates each employee and how to adapt their communication style. Effective communication dictates the success and cohesion of employees, and DiSC assessments provide a universal language for business and are the best way to optimize communication.”
– Stacey McKibbin, CEO, Consilio
This regular communication will ease the minds of your team, increase loyalty, and minimize fear and panic regarding layoffs. It could also create a greater sense of solidarity as your team strives to reach a common goal.
For example, if reaching a certain profit goal by a specific date will prevent layoffs or allow you to give out bonuses, this will give them something tangible to work toward.
Creating a Vision & Driving Innovation
One of the primary skills you’ll learn during leadership development will be understanding the importance of creating a culture of learning and development. During a recession, many organizations focus on just staying afloat and treading water.
But this is when driving innovation and providing growth opportunities is crucial! Uncertain times require innovative solutions. Remember—you set the tone. Constantly be open to experimenting and trying every option (while managing risk).
Exemplify fearlessness and a willingness to think outside the box. Training helps leaders get comfortable taking calculated risks, empowering teams to try new things, unlocking new revenue streams, and analyzing situations to identify unique levers and opportunities within them.
But you should also clearly establish goals and communicate your vision. Where do you see your company being in a year from now? Contextualize tasks within long-term goals, focus on results instead of the process and give your people the skills to implement and execute them.
Having a clear vision and communicating it will make your team feel like you are prepared to not just endure a downturn but to thrive during it. During such uncertainty, your team must be working toward a shared goal.
Gaining a Competitive Edge
The culmination of all these benefits is a competitive edge for your business that improves your bottom-line! With leadership development, you unlock your team’s potential and put them in a position to lead and succeed in a disruptive world.
As a result, your company will be more productive, efficient, and agile because your leaders will consistently execute and understand how to:
- Pivot and navigate changing conditions
- Recognize and capitalize on opportunities quickly
- Communicate, coach, and delegate
- Hone their interview skills
- Manage change
- And much more
Businesses that thrive during a recession leverage situational leadership to adapt their skills and strategies to remain competitive, and this leadership training will help develop the critical thinking skills necessary to make decisions in any environment.
“You can have leaders at all levels, and people don’t have to be in leadership positions to be leaders on their teams. Closing skills gaps and giving people at all levels of your organization the skills and knowledge they need to thrive as leaders is how your business can thrive when facing a recession.”
– Stacey McKibbin, CEO, Consilio
Do You Want to Learn Business-Resilience Strategies to Thrive During a Recession? Our Leadership Development Program Can Help!
With recession looming like an impending storm, a leadership development program is essential to improve retention, maximize productivity and efficiency, optimize communication, maximize savings, drive innovation, and give your business a competitive advantage. Waiting until the final hour to prepare your leaders for an economic downturn is like waiting until a storm hits to build a shelter.
Are you ready to create success on purpose in disruptive times? Visit our Leadership Training Page to learn more about Consilio’s leadership training.
