Accelerating Your Leadership Program in 2022? Focus On These 5 Skills

If there’s anything the last two years have taught us, it is the fact that effective leadership is one of the most important strengths of an organization to deal with constant change. Companies are still grappling with the repercussions of the pandemic and that has remained one of the biggest challenges of 2021. Leaders have faced myriad trials during this time -- right from bringing supply chains back on track to helping employees adjust to hybrid environment to dealing with The Great Resignation.

It’s clear that it may be difficult for the business world to return to the pre-pandemic era given the fact that peaks and troughs will continue to be the norm. The positive side is that while the challenges have created unprecedented chaos, they have also presented organizations and leaders across the globe with several opportunities. Moving forward, it will be up to leaders to stay strong while running the organization and helping employees adapt to the situation. Robust leadership training programs will remain a necessity in 2022 to build successful and effective leaders during this immense period of change.

We present to you a list of 5 skills that you should include in your leadership programs in 2022 if you want a strong leadership amidst uncertainties.

1. Communication & Collaboration

It’s an understatement now to say that hybrid work is here to stay. This kind of environment calls for much better communication skills to overcome the challenges in collaboration. Leaders need to focus on improving their own communication as well as that among their teams to bring more effectiveness during interactions.

In a remote or hybrid setting, smooth collaboration is not an organic outcome unless leaders take special efforts to open communication channels, while setting team goals. Leaders should always encourage a creative and inclusive environment, whether in office or on screen.

2. Digital & Tech Expertise

The business world was already experiencing rapid digitalization even before the pandemic. The pandemic however accelerated the pace at a never before seen speed. While most companies have already adapted to technology transformation by now, it is upto leaders to ensure that their workforce is adept with the latest technologies. They need to check that their organization is

prepared to implement latest business tools and technologies including AI and ML, remote onboarding and collaboration, more quickly and efficiently, if they haven’t already done so.

A good training program that focusses on digital and tech skills is most often the answer to these needs. It is imperative to strengthen the tech expertise of leaders in order to ensure that the organization and employees will leverage advanced tech.

3. Change Management

Just as change has become a constant in the past two years, the ability to manage that change is also a continuous requirement. The most strategic initiatives can fail if leaders are unable to support the organization through change.

Today’s leaders themselves need strong change management skills if they wish to help employees adapt to a new way of working. Training is necessary in change management if leaders want to position themselves as strategists and enablers.

4. Strategic Decision-making & Analysis

At a time when data is at the core of everything, and there are improved ways of collecting it, the challenge still lies in the way to properly analyze it and put the results into practice. This is one skill that leaders need more than any other skill today. In the absence of the ability to analyze data, there is a very low chance that they will be able to understand the progress of their learners and the effectiveness of learning programs.

As Josh Bersin puts it, learning leaders must use a “whole constellation of activities,” including everything from certifications and manager feedback, to employee 360s and engagement surveys to assess skills and track progress towards closing skills gaps.

5. Employee Development Capabilities

This may have been put as the last skill, but it might as well be the most important skill that leaders need at the moment. In any organization, it is necessary that leaders have the ability to empower their employees with the skills they need to be better at their work to improve the organization’s bottom line.

Leaders need to foster a culture and environment where employee development is of seminal importance. They need to create the right opportunities for employees to feel excited to undertake learning initiatives in order to essay their roles better. Leaders need to have employee development capabilities and the right sense to invest in employee learning programs to stimulate an environment of upward mobility and success.

Parting Thoughts

Regardless of situations, leaders should adapt, grow and pivot while helping their teams to do the same. As change remains inevitable for every organization, now is the time to strengthen your leadership development programs. While we have mentioned these 5 skills, they are in no way exhaustive. However, they are certainly good to start with.

Plethora houses an exhaustive catalog of Leadership & Management courses, and with the help of seasoned eLearning content experts, is able to custom build individual learning plans to achieve a specified business objective.

To learn more about Plethora courses and view our curated plans, please get in touch here.