The Learning Performance

There is a saying:" In the land of blind, one eye is king".

That is very true.

To take a company to the next level, I believe that leadership is key. Business world is getting tougher, more and more competitive, and the external factors are becoming greater and greater a big hairy puzzle to untangle (just think about USA, China, Iraq war, SARS, fuel price, bird flu, etc, you would get what I meant). Without doubt, companies that have a clear vision with forward thinking leadership stand a better chance to survive and achieve desirable growth.

The fact of the matter is past successes do not guarantee future successes.

The question is are leaders born? May be. But the goods news, leadership can be taught and learned. According to research done by ASTD, there are 10 major competencies of leadership:
1) Self-understanding
2) Resilience
3) Interpersonal and relationship skills
4) Communication skills
5) Employee development (motivation and coaching)
6) Customer orientation
7) Strategic business acumen
8) Project leadership
9) Creating and actualising vision
10) Create, support and manage change.

Anybody can acquire the knowledge and skills and internalise the above 10 competencies, through systematic training intervention, and becoming a leader with great leadership skills.

Go through above list of 10 competencies and decide for yourself at what stage of leadership development is you (or your company) stand at the moment.

Then ask yourself, what is the desirable state of leadership.

If there is a gap to bridge, then a leadership training programme is in order.

And by the way, you have just done a simple training needs analysis on leadership!