Is Leadership Training Worth It?

Now that we’ve identified multiple areas where there really is room in the budget to invest in leadership development, let’s answer a more important question: Is Leadership Training REALLY Worth It?

Several years ago, I was with a friend of mine who owns a construction company. A few of the guys on one of his crews were just hammering him about how much time they could save the next time they had to do a certain task if they’d get them this fancy new tool. Truth be told, they were absolutely correct. The tool they were asking for had potential to help them get that particular task done much faster on every project, but it carried a fairly hefty price tag at nearly $1,000. My friend decided it was a worthwhile investment and purchased it for them. I was with him a few weeks later when he mentioned that this crew was about to do that task for the first time since he had purchased the tool and he was headed about to see it in action. Since I had some time in my schedule that day, and I’ve worked around the construction industry for most of my life, I asked to ride along. 

You’ll never believe what we found when we arrived at the jobsite… The crew was almost done with the task but had yet to take the new tool out of the box! I supposed that saved a bit of wear & tear on the fancy new tool but it sure didn’t have much impact on the amount of labor they used to perform the task… To say my friend was frustrated would be quite the understatement; he was pissed!

Here’s the thing… When we purchase a physical product and someone chooses not to use it, we can see that right away. But how often have we paid for a team member to attend ANY type of training, only to have them come back to work and do the exact same thing they were doing prior to the training? Let’s be honest, it happens all the stinking time - regardless of the topic of the training. With leadership training, or really anything that seems to fall into the soft skill category, it tends to be even more difficult to recognize whether or not there’s any real tangible impact. 

I sat in on a webinar recently addressing the potential for active threats in the workplace. (This topic had previously been referred to as “active shooter” but there are far more methods being used for workplace violence than just firearms so the term seems to be evolving.) One comment that rang true was that so many organizations click through a few slides and change a company policy they found online to include their own organization’s name, then call it good. I’ve seen that done more times that I can count when it comes to leadership training! In fact, a company asked us to help them do that recently; swing by and talk for a few minutes so they can make sweeping changes in their culture… That approach won’t help in an active threat situation and it won’t help build strong leaders either!

As I dug through several articles on this topic, I found one on Forbes.com called If You Think Leadership Development Is A Waste Of Time You May Be Right that called out all those folks who are only willing to check a box but seem to think that should deliver results. Interestingly enough, that article went on to detail several things we can do to make sure our investment into developing our leaders does indeed provide a return. We’ll begin looking at a few of those things next then we’ll tie it all together by nailing done the specific ways we can measure our results!