Why Every Business Needs To Develop Their Future Leaders

Why Every Business Needs To Develop Their Future Leaders

By Mark Wager

Every business is looking for the right investment which will take them to the next level. A Manager considers whether to invest in new technology, new premises or new equipment but the best investment may be right in front of them. To take your business to the next level you need to invest in your people. Many successful companies have demonstrated that the better the people you have the more profitable your business is.

Many companies currently invest in developing their management team and as a Leadership Consultant I'm lucky to be involved with many companies across the Asia-Pacific region showing their leaders how to be more effective yet the real investment rests below that level. If you really want to secure a bright future for your company then you need to invest in your future leaders. The benefits you will receive will be significant and multi layered. Let me explain further.

Every Manager is a Leader but not every Leader is a Manager

You may have a management team but they may not be necessarily the leaders within your organisation. Leadership is not a title bestowed by a company it's a title that's given by people who have trust and belief in an individual to such a degree that they are influenced by them. Anyone in your organisation who has a high level of expertise and strong personal qualities that others admire is a leader regardless of whether or not you or even they want to be. It's these people who have the power to influence people around them and therefore the future of your company. It's logical business sense to identify these people, bring them on board with your vision and develop them.

Good development is better than cheap recruitment

It's common to recruit the wrong person for a job. The Harvard Business Review estimated that up to 80% of staff turnover can be related to poor recruitment and this has a significant impact on the profitability of a business. According to a study by the Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM), the cost of recapturing poorly could be up to five times the salary of the staff member in question. This includes the cost of replacing the employee, lost productivity and the impact on fellow employees. SHRM also found that the higher the person’s position and the longer they remain in that position, the more it will cost to replace him or her. If you can develop people into future leadership roles rather than recruit them into it then you significantly reduce the risk to your business.

The more motivated the staff the bigger the profits.

Everyone has a fundamental desire to feel valued so what better way to make your staff feel valued than by investing in their future by training them and publicly declaring that you want them to be part of your company's future. Motivation can be further enhanced by aligning a staff member's personal ambition to the company's overall objective. By this I mean, if you can identify the ambition of the staff member and you can illustrate that working hard for you will get them closer to realising that ambition then you will have a very motivated and valuable member of the team. Never forget that people will work to help you achieve your goals but they will sweat blood and tears in order to achieve their own.

Desire and commitment is infectious.

If you clearly state that you are intending to identify and develop future leaders within your organisation then your are setting a challenge that not only your staff but also your managers have to meet. You will soon see which staff members have the desire and commitment to step up and take the role of a future leader and nothing is as infectious within a company than desire and commitment. This positive behaviour will influence others around them even those who are not identified as future leaders. As for the current managers, they will know that they are not irreplaceable and will need to improve their own leadership skills not only to lead their staff but also to lead and develop future leaders.

There's often a misconception that if you train your staff, especially if you train them to be leaders then they will leave so it's a false economy. The truth is that some will eventually leave because they will reach a level where they desire opportunities that you are unable to offer but by that time they would have given so much back to the company that any training or investment is easily justified. Then you have the ones who stay and become your future leaders. They will provide you with the innovation and commitment that your company needs to succeed. If you still need convincing of the benefits of developing your staff then I will leave you with the words of the motivational speaker Zig Ziglar who once said "There is only one thing worse than training employees and losing them, and that's not training them, and keeping them."

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