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#LEADERSHIP

Leadership Training for Executives: A Guide for Senior Leaders.

BY
Andrew Langat
March 1, 2024
An image showing executives engaged in a leadership training session, collaborating, and learning essential skills for effective leadership.
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By the time you rise to be a senior leader, you have acquired vital leadership skills such as mastering executive presence, negotiation skills, and emotional intelligence, among others.

These leadership skills add up and create leadership values vital in creating an all-rounded leader.

In a constantly changing world, coupled with new business challenges, the need for senior executives to learn through self-paced executive leadership development courses or enroll in a tailor-made executive leadership program is vital to attaining professional and personal growth that can be leveraged to enable an organization to succeed.

How do you proceed as a leader looking to develop skills and offer thought leadership? This article will answer these questions.

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Why is Executive Leadership Training Important?

Importance of executive training

Leadership and leadership training for executives is important for several reasons. Some gains to executive leadership training include:

1. Assist with Vision Clarity.

Executive leaders attribute their success to having a vision for success. Leadership vision is the ability to focus on the essential aspects of yourself or your business.

A leader draws from the lessons from the past, present realities, and future aspirations. When well crafted, it can act as a perfect rallying cry for all stakeholders to achieve a common objective.

Training allows you to step back from your daily routine, assess your organization, and make considerations for the future. With an intensive program, you can inspire others with your visionary communication skills that lead to:

  • Increased Engagement and Motivation for team members
  • Improved Decision-Making in creating a vision
  • Enhanced Collaboration and Alignment for all stakeholders
  • Greater Adaptability and Resilience to changing business circumstances

2. Confidence Boost.

To achieve high performance, you need to be confident in your ability, and it's essential for both your personal and professional life.

Leadership training will put you under pressure situations where you will gain some belief in yourself because, as an effective leader, you have to speak to your team, staff, and employees.

With self-confidence, you can ease through any problem, enabling you to make decisions with conviction and decisiveness.

How Leadership Training Boosts Confidence:

  • Skills Development: Leaders learn practical skills that foster a sense of competence and capability, which contributes to confidence in handling business challenges.
  • Knowledge Acquisition: Training provides participants with theoretical frameworks and best practices in leadership.
  • Self-Awareness Enhancement: Many programs incorporate exercises that promote self-reflection and self-discovery.
  • Feedback and Mentorship: Training often involves providing constructive feedback and mentorship opportunities. This allows leaders to identify areas for improvement.
  • Networking and Community Building: Training programs connect individuals with other aspiring and experienced leaders.

3. Communication Skills.

As an executive leader, especially at the c suite level, you interact with a diverse group of individuals from different generations, and to get all "singing from the same hymn sheet," you need to acquire proper communication and management skills.

When mastered, this critical element of leadership massively increases the odds of becoming a successful leader.

Leadership training will help you communicate effectively with your team, and these skills will help you communicate across your organization to motivate everyone to work together to succeed. You can relay your leadership style and vision and share new insights.

How Leadership Training Enhances Communication Skills:

  • Developing Active Listening Skills: Training programs focus on techniques for active listening, such as fully focusing on the speaker, maintaining eye contact, properly using non-verbal clues, asking clarifying questions, etc. This allows leaders to understand their team members' perspectives and concerns thoroughly.
  • Mastering Storytelling and Persuasion: Training equips leaders with the skills to craft compelling narratives, present ideas persuasively, and motivate action. Take the example of Steve Jobs or Richard Branson.
  • Conflict Resolution and Negotiation Techniques: Programs provide tools and strategies for navigating challenging conversations, resolving conflicts constructively, and reaching agreements.
  • Public Speaking and Presentation Skills Development: Participants gain experience delivering presentations, managing stage presence, and engaging audiences effectively.

4. Emotional Intelligence.

This is among the most critical executive leadership skills a senior leader needs. When a leader lacks emotional intelligence, there is a residual effect when it comes to conflict resolution and motivating others to achieve the set targets.

Leaders must learn how to improve their emotional intelligence to offer authentic leadership. Leaders with this vital skill can create a positive work environment where employees feel comfortable taking risks and sharing their ideas.

They can make difficult decisions, resolve conflict effectively, and adapt to changing business goals and circumstances.

With Leadership training, you will learn ways to improve your emotional intelligence, and by using empathy can effectively empower your staff, team, and employees to achieve more outstanding results.

How Leadership Training Boosts Emotional Intelligence

  • Self-Assessment and Self-Awareness Activities: Training programs often incorporate personality assessments, journaling exercises, and feedback mechanisms to help individuals identify their emotional strengths and weaknesses.
  • Emotional Regulation Techniques: Participants learn strategies for managing stress, controlling anger, and navigating difficult emotions healthily and constructively.
  • Empathy Development Exercises: Training programs provide opportunities to practice active listening, perspective-taking, and understanding the emotions of others.
  • Social Skills Development: Participants learn effective communication techniques, conflict resolution strategies, and interpersonal skills for building solid relationships.

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How Do you Start Leadership Training for Senior Leaders?

Before you get started on executive leadership training courses, you should first determine the programs to be put in place to improve these skills.

Your own organization can play a role in your leadership training. They can offer training programs to offer you and your leadership team a chance to grow and develop. This can be a certificate program or an online certificate program. That said, before identifying leadership training for senior leaders, establish the following first.

  • Identify Skills Gaps: Identify which skills are lacking among senior leaders and determine the skill-building programs that should be implemented. For example, are they inadequate when it comes to decision-making skills? Improvement of organization culture? This can be done via questionnaires, performance reviews, or simply looking at a resume.
  • Choose Relevant Training Programs: Select executive leadership training courses that align with the organization's needs, objectives, and industry demands. The program selected should equip senior leaders with a comprehensive understanding of crucial skills. These programs can include workshops, mentorship, coaching, and classroom learning.
  • Provide Targeted Training: Focus on targeted training to strengthen the skills needed for effective leadership, motivation, and success. For example, aim to teach core steps in problem-solving.
  • Encourage Continuous Learning: Emphasize the importance of continuous development for senior leaders to navigate challenges effectively and support organizational success.
  • Utilize Coaching Services: Consider executive coaching services to help senior leaders navigate leadership demands and enhance performance.

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What are the Criteria For Choosing An Executive Leadership Training Program?

criteria for selecting executive leadership training programs.

Choosing an ideal leadership training program that can guarantee career development can be difficult. Therefore, you must make some considerations before settling for one. Here are some:

1. Ensure the Program is from a reputable organization

Select a leadership development program from a reputable organization, such as a top business management school or any other organization with a reputable executive leadership program.

Reviewing its international recognition is one way to know that the School is top. The best schools have won awards for performances from non-profit organizations, magazines, other organizations, and government institutions.

Examples of organizations to research and select from include Havard Business School or IMD Business School, which are accredited to provide proper programs to help executive leaders advance their careers.

2. The program Must Expand to your Horizon.

Choose an executive leadership training program that will help expand your knowledge and understanding of different situations and scenarios within your area of expertise. This is key because you will need a broader perspective to advance your career and focus on driving organizational results.

A thorough understanding of industry and global trends and how the world is changing is essential for leaders who aspire to get into executive-level management.

3. The Program must contribute to Leadership Development.

Executive leadership training courses must contribute to Leadership Development. To be an organization leader or an executive director, you need to refine and develop your core competencies and understand what you're missing as a leader.

The Leadership program must polish your leadership abilities so that you have new insight into business operations and your ability to lead others.

4. Training Courses Must be Challenging and Engaging.

Choose a training program that is both demanding and engaging. The course material must focus on solving complex business problems that can benefit your organization. It must also help you develop a strategic mindset that will help you get unconventional solutions for the business problems you may encounter.

The training should offer an experiential program with efficient leadership development, including lively discussions on real-life cases and thought-provoking discussions to help you successfully navigate challenges.

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5. The value of the Training Program must be Immediate and Lasting.

The training course must apply to your organization. Engaging in such training programs serves the primary goal of helping you understand important ideas and apply them for the benefit of your organization.

You will benefit much from an executive training program that provides instant value to your company if you are genuinely relevant to your work.

6. The Program must Help you Overcome Daily Challenges.

Training programs must allow you to glimpse your ultimate responsibilities as a leader, and through experiential learning, you can learn the critical elements of leading effective teams. Also, it will equip you with the skills to overcome unique challenges you may encounter daily.

Ensure you have some benefit and extensive experience in your field so that you come off better rather than worse at the end of a program.

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Organization with Executive Leadership Programs for Senior Leaders.

There are programs for C-suite executives to connect, learn, and grow. They refresh leadership approaches, and some offer a break from work. Top business schools provide executive leadership programs tailored to their busy schedules. They are available online, hybrid, and in-person, covering risk management, competition, and brand reputation.

Here are some top Business Schools:

1. The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

The Wharton School offers a five-week Advanced Management Program where you will attend sessions and experiential learning with other senior executives here. The School can offer a hybrid program where you can complete the courses online.

Check program details here: Executive Coaching and Feedback Program (ECFP)

2. MIT Sloan School of Management.

C-level executives need help, too, and for their organizations to have a highly successful financial return, the gap between strategy and execution should be bridged. At MIT, you'll get a good refresher program to fine-tune your leadership skills.

Led by Donald Sull, a management expert, you will complete a survey to evaluate whether your organization and culture have been successful with strategy execution and to pinpoint improvement opportunities.

Check out the full details of the program here: Executive Certificate in Management and Leadership.

3. The Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

This women's senior leadership program is aimed at external management, ethical challenges, executive presence, negotiation skills, and decision-making.

One unique feature of the program is that it has a 360-degree assessment that provides feedback about your leadership style, free from bias from your organization. It's made to assess women in leadership positions and consider their individual challenges.

It's a year-long program, and throughout the year, you will be assigned leadership consultants who will check in to follow your progress and ensure you achieve your development goals.

Learn more about Kellog's course here: Executive Leadership Development Program.

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Try out the Highrise Leadership Development Course

Executive leadership training courses offer practical tools for career advancement for senior managers.

They impart change initiatives that participants can use to shape organizational behavior. Beyond this, working with an executive coach through an in-person program offers a tailor-made approach that can make a difference in executive leadership development initiatives.

At Highrise, we offer a path for executives to be the best version of themselves. Whether you want to improve your executive presence, become better at strategy, improve organization culture, or make your organization achieve set goals, Highrise coaching will assist you in becoming a more effective leader.

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AUTHOR
Andrew Langat
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Andrew Langat is an experienced content specialist in Leadership, Productivity, Education, Fintech, and Research. He is an avid reader and loves swimming as a hobby. He believes that quality content should be actionable and helpful.