Driving Continuous Learning: The Power of Effective Leadership

73% of HR leaders reported that their company's leaders and managers lack the necessary skills to navigate change management challenges effectively. This emphasizes the urgent need for proactive leadership amidst the complexities of managing hybrid teams and ensuring employee well-being while maintaining high performance.  

This critical gap in leadership capabilities raises a red flag, signaling potential long-term repercussions for teams and broader business and talent outcomes.

In this blog, we delve into the pressing issues faced by today's managers, and discover strategies to bridge the skill gap, ensuring a resilient and effective leadership foundation in the face of constant change.

How Does an Effective Leader Create an Impact?

Effective leaders or managers inspire and motivate teams, nurture positive work cultures, and tackle challenges with adaptability. By communicating, showing empathy, and emphasizing continuous improvement, they drive success at both individual and collective levels. 

HR leaders are fully aware of the severity of the situation. HR leaders have designated leader and manager effectiveness as a top priority in both 2023 and 2024. CHROs and L&D leaders must address this pressing issue by adding it to their priority list to enhance management outcomes and prevent talent loss due to employee burnout.

5 Strategies to Improve Leader and Manager Effectiveness 

There are multiple ways to enhance leadership effectiveness. However, the ones that can fetch better outcomes are as follows:

1) Conduct skill-based assessments for first-time managers and leaders

Being a first-time manager or leader can be daunting. Many new managers don't know where to begin, and there is no one-size-fits-all approach to leadership. This can lead to ineffectiveness and burnout in their career development journey. 

That's why it's so important for HR leaders to assess the skills and potential of first-time managers or leaders before selecting or promoting them to help them understand their current performance as well as their potential for new responsibilities.

Figure: Role scores to determine potential for next role

2) Create tailored training programs for managers 

Historically, there was a deficiency in addressing the specific challenges faced by managers, resulting in a lack of adaptability, emotional intelligence, and essential skill enhancement. This void contributed to ineffective leadership, affecting organizational growth, and employee satisfaction.

To rectify this, human resources (HR) and learning & development (L&D) initiatives must spearhead customized programs. These programs need to be very specific about what managers and leaders need, with training methods that help them improve their skills, boost their emotional intelligence, and become more flexible. 

The tailored nature of these programs ensures that leaders receive precise training, addressing their shortcomings and preparing them for the multifaceted responsibilities of their roles.

Norlida Azmi, CHRO, Axiata Malaysia, shares how L&D leaders can blend push and pull to achieve better L&D results. 

3) Helping managers offload responsibility by improving visibility

Skilling alone can't fix the current problem of managers who are not doing their jobs well. HR leaders must consciously work towards offloading managers’ multiple responsibilities by providing them a better visibility of their team’s performance. 

Gallup's research underscores the paramount role of managers in shaping employee engagement and performance, eclipsing all other factors. To elaborate further, the effectiveness of the manager is directly associated with a remarkable 70% of the variability in team engagement. 

Consequently, it becomes imperative to furnish managers with enhanced visibility into their team's performance, not only for their personal growth but also as a pivotal means to elevate the overall performance of their teams.

Managers can improve team performance by using a comprehensive dashboard to track real-time key performance indicator (KPI) metrics and identify areas of concern or excellence. This enables them to provide targeted coaching and interventions. 

Figure: Comprehensive Overview of Employee Performance

4) Empower managers with the latest tech trends

Previously, a significant challenge for managers lay in the monotony of redundant tasks. However, a recent transformative shift demands that managers not only embrace but also stay current with the latest technology and trends. This evolution is imperative, ensuring that organizations, regardless of their tech-savvy status, perform optimally. 

To address this, human resources (HR) and learning & development (L&D) initiatives must integrate technology seamlessly. By providing leaders with access to online resources, webinars, and virtual collaboration tools, organizations empower their leaders to remain well-informed and adept in this current market condition. 

Leaders gain the latest insights and foster a culture of continuous learning and innovation within the realms of HR and L&D through this strategic integration.

Sarina Abu Bakar, Chief Human Officer, Telekom Malaysia, shares how training leaders helped train 20,000 employees at scale. 

5) Provide cross-functional training and collaboration

In the past, leaders faced challenges with limited insights into diverse business functions, hindering their ability to make informed decisions. Cross-functional training is now imperative to dissolve these barriers, allowing leaders to broaden their perspectives and comprehend various aspects of the business. The necessity for such training arises from the need for a holistic approach to problem-solving and decision-making.

Therefore, HR and L&D teams can design training programs to expose leaders to various business functions, providing insights into different roles and responsibilities. 

• Encourage leaders to participate in workshops, seminars, or online courses that broaden their understanding. 

• Establish platforms for interdepartmental collaboration, such as cross-functional project teams or regular joint meetings.

• Create opportunities for leaders to shadow colleagues from other functions, gaining hands-on experience. 

By incorporating these practical approaches, organizations can seamlessly integrate cross-functional training and collaboration, ensuring leaders develop a holistic perspective and contribute to the overall effectiveness of leadership roles.

Conclusion

Previously, the absence of targeted leadership development left managers ill-equipped for evolving challenges, particularly in change management. This deficiency hindered organizational growth and led to employee stress. Addressing this gap is crucial as effective leadership directly impacts employee engagement and overall performance. 

HR and L&D initiatives can bridge this divide by investing in an AI-driven learning experience platform such as Disprz that facilitates implementing skill-based assessments for better talent management, tailored employee training programs to enhance skills, fostering technology integration to stay current, and promoting cross-functional collaboration for holistic decision-making.