The value of leadership and management training is a no-brainer. Employees train in leadership when they aspire to or are being groomed for management positions. Incumbent managers wanting to sharpen their skills often take refresher courses or participate in specific skill-building courses or personal style-awareness exercises. And more often, individual contributors are asked to take ad hoc leadership roles - with large pools of resources and big expectations at stake.
According to Forbes, the American Society of Training and Development reports that the top three categories for professional development are:
The source also reported that highly qualified individual contributors are an exception in these classrooms. With today's fluid business realities, official positions are less meaningful than whatever roles the day brings - project leader, initiator of a business process improvement or genius with the new product design to promote!
What qualities does an individual contributor need to develop to lead effectively?
The mad genius in the office basement may not need leadership skills. But the rest of us may have some ideas to sell. Most often, we cannot contribute to our organization as an island. Others look to us to be experts on certain subjects, the coordinator of team efforts, the champion of an approach to a business problem, the person who will take the reins on an important project and see it through to completion. Leadership opportunities and imperatives are present in almost every professional role.
Management and leadership training programs teach managers and individual contributors alike to become comfortable with the leadership hat, through training the constructs of leadership and human behavior, and through modeling, coaching and practicing leadership skills in a safe environment.