Want to be a better leader? Start experimenting

Strong leaders are key to any company’s success, so you’d think that leadership development courses would be a worthwhile business investment.

But this isn’t always the case. In an article for Harvard Business Review, Ron Ashkenas and Dr Robert Hausmann discuss the pitfalls of traditional management training.

Around the world, companies spent $24 billion on leadership training in 2013, an increase of 15% from the previous year.

Traditional training courses often focus on hypothetical case studies, which can make it difficult for participants to apply their knowledge to real-life situations and learn through their mistakes.

The authors argue that leadership development should begin with real business challenges that push people outside their comfort zones and force them to adapt their approach to fit the situation.

Ashkenas and Hausmann are collaborating with leadership development teams at global companies to apply these ideas.

Their programme introduces managers to specific challenges faced by the business and asks them to meet the people involved, develop solutions, and implement small versions of them.

“The small-scale project would test a possible solution in a low-risk way, in 100 days or less, and without the pressure of having to be right,” the authors say.

“In other words, the main purpose was to quickly learn about what does or doesn’t work.”

Of the 75 participants that participated in the experiment, 80% completed their projects and produced results and business insights.

Participants said the fast-changing environments and hands-on training allowed them to learn how to be more effective leaders. As one of the participants reported after the experiment:

"By doing our experiment at one site instead of implementing at all 30 of them at once, it took the pressure off. We could see what the data said, and it was all right if it wasn’t perfect. Then we adjusted before moving on to other sites.”

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