Focus on leadership: How to apply it in a professional environment?

Introduction: what is the ROI for corporate leadership training?

In his article” Why Leadership Training Fails—and What to Do About It”, the Harvard Business Review reveals that companies spend a lot (456 billion in 2015 in the US) on training without getting a good return on investment.

As a result, current working methods persist and the benefits of training on the evolution of performance indicators are nil.

Among all the training courses on so-called 21st century skills, at Didask, we observe a strong demand for effective leadership. Again, businesses invest heavily, but the results are often disappointing.. What is annoying as this skill is of key importance, it no longer needs to be proven, in terms of employee motivation, decision-making, conflict resolution...

This article explores why traditional methods fail and how a training approach based on cognitive science and AI can increase the ROI of leadership training.

The crux of the problem: leadership training is disconnected from the realities on the ground

A problem of form - too theoretical training?

If the huge investments in leadership training do not translate into improved performance, It's mainly because of the format of these formations. Certainly, face-to-face workshops in small groups can be of good quality. Moreover, it is the only way to meet the concrete needs of leaders. But they are generally reserved for top management and for good reason, this format, which requires resources, is not scalable.

However, many organizations now want democratizing leadership for the sake of performance. Therefore, digital technology appears to be the only way to avoid the explosion of organizational costs and constraints. However, and this is where the problem lies, the digitalization of leadership training too often rhymes with a dismal ROI.

Traditionally, leadership training focuses on A large place for the theory part, when they're not just focused on it. Learner leaders then risk following content that is disconnected from their operational realities. They will follow an alternation of videos, featuring actors in a leadership situation, then hopefully a generic summary, before in the best of cases, conducting a quiz, which is also “generic”. It is therefore difficult for the learner to project himself. on the application of the precepts and to embrace the purpose of its learning. We are far from what they need to develop real skills and succeed in transposing the lessons into their daily professional lives. At least according to the recommendations of cognitive science research.

A fundamental problem - contradictory injunctions?

In addition to these form problems, there are also substantive problems.

Learners' feedback regularly highlights the lack of alignment between leadership training courses and the injunctions made to them on the strategic orientation of the business. Others point to the inadequacy or at least a tension between the values of the company and the precepts transmitted during training making it impossible to apply them (for example: how to be a benevolent leader but uncompromising on operational excellence at the same time?). Again, learners need to see what is expected of them in practice.

Impactful leadership is multifaceted and contextual, the courses offered must be

Effective leadership goes beyond simple theoretical understanding; it requires a concrete application that is aligned with the strategic goals of your business. A well-trained leader will go further than simply assimilating theoretical concepts. He will know how to transpose them into his daily professional environment (read our article on learning transfer). 3 essential keys to move from memorization to application in eLearning training). It is therefore a question of offering training that goes beyond the informational side to be truly transformative.

However, the skills expected of a leader are all the more difficult to transpose as they depend enormously on the context. Communicate, inspire, share a clear vision, motivate teams, make strategic decisions based on an understanding of business goals and immediate market data. All these skills cannot be developed without taking into account environmental data, which can be complex (read our article on key leadership competencies)

It is therefore the responsibility of the trainer to offer training courses that are not only practical, but also adapted to the contexts and realities of learners in their diversity. This requires knowing the context of the learners and taking it into account from the training engineering phase.

That being said, thinking of individualized training to the contexts and level of skills of each learner can seem very long, tedious, even impossible... and yet.

Leaving traditional solutions: starting from field contexts and the cognitive needs of learners

An effective approach would be to Starting from the needs of the field and not leadership concepts to be transmitted in order to offer a meaningful and effective approach from the point of view of the transformation of learners. For example, the format of the Learning Transformation Platform Didask differs from traditional methods by its ability to offer leadership training adapted to the specific realities of each learner. It includes all the elements recommended by cognitive psychology research to transmit effectively. This adaptation involves taking into account learners' cognitive challenges in order to assimilate and activate the training content. It is therefore necessary to start from what they need according to whether they already have existing practices or not, for example. It also requires students to immerse themselves in Contexts that speak to represent how to mobilize lessons in concrete terms (find out more via our article) Interactive simulation: an apprenticeship in which you are the hero)

A lot of emphasis is placed on scenarios, coupled with personalized feedback, generated by AI, makes it easy to learning transfer of your learners and the adoption of the leadership postures expected by in their specific environment.

Personalized feedback ensures that each participant is aware of their existing postures, so that deconstruct as needed and integrates the expected reflexes through advice adapted to his individual needs. In fact, we detail the importance of feedback in our article Learning by trial and error: unleash the potential of feedback.

If we interview learners, this is what they are looking for: to know how to embody the leader expected by the company in the situations that come their way.

We see that this targeted and practical approach generates a significant ROI for our customers!

The results are great in terms of commitment (+49% commitment to management and leadership training for a population of 9,000 learners).

They are convincing in terms of impact since 4 months after training, 94% of learners say that Didask training courses have transformed the way they do things on a daily basis.

Certainly, but what about the design, is it long?

Relying on his educational artificial intelligence and a methodological framework based on cognitive science, Didask allows your educational engineers or even directly to your experts to create these interactive learning experiences very quickly and easily.

A small bonus in the context of leadership training: the design exercise can be transformative for organizations because of the pedagogical methodology used. It effectively requires training teams to agree on what is expected of leaders in problem situations in which, sometimes, no arbitration has been made by the organization (for example: our culture advocates taking initiative but also collaboration: 2 innovative projects meeting the same needs are set up in two different teams, what should a good leader do in this situation to be aligned with the values and strategic objectives of the company?)

To conclude

Offering good leadership training is the same as know operational realities of learners and ensure that the messages proposed can be mobilized by the learners in these situations.

If you need to go for a solution, Prioritize those who advocate a holistic and contextualized approach to leadership. This will allow your learners to understand how their leadership style fits both into your organization's strategic framework and how it can be mobilized into their daily operational frameworks. To ensure a profound and sustainable transformation of practices.