Leadership Matters: Unlocking the potential of your team

This spring, recruitment agency Hays released a surprising statistic that made Canadian employers sit up and take notice. In its 2024 annual salary survey report, the organization found that a staggering 71% of surveyed Canadian employees expressed a desire to leave their jobs within the next year. With 55% of respondents reporting increased on-the-job stress and 46% feeling unmotivated at work, it seems that many workplaces may be in a crisis with disengaged staff who have one foot out the door.

If organizations want to take employee retention seriously, they may not need to look far beyond their own leadership teams. A survey from leadership consulting firm DDI revealed that up to 57% of employees have left a job solely due to poor leadership. This underscores the critical importance of effective leadership in retaining top talent. But, while it's common to believe that most dissatisfied employees leave bad jobs, the truth is that many stay but become disengaged and negative. This attitude can lead to decreased productivity and creativity on the part of the disillusioned employees, but also leak into damaging the overall morale of the remaining workforce.

If that wasn’t bad enough, employee attrition and demotivation due to lack of leadership can be the tip of the iceberg to a bigger organizational problem. Poor leadership can not only hamstring an organization within their own workforce, but it can also decrease their agility to meet organizational challenges, and poor leaders often lack vision to adapt to changing business landscapes and cultures.

Leadership development: A critical investment

Clearly, it’s essential to invest in leadership development, but this can be easier said than done. The DDI study revealed that not only is the leadership pipeline often haphazardly managed, but many organizations do not properly train and mentor their leaders once they are in position, so that they feel capable of managing their role. According to the study,

• 70% of frontline managers felt surprised by and unprepared for their promotion.
• 18% regretted taking on their leadership role.
• 41% expressed doubt that it was the right move.

These results are not surprising to the leadership consultants at NorQuest’s College’s Custom Training Services (CTS). Through their experience of developing and delivering custom leadership training for organizations, they experience firsthand that many organizations struggle to prepare their leaders for the demands of their roles. They point to a lack of structured leadership pipelines, limited resources, and time constraints that often hinder effective leadership development. For example, it can take an average of 10 years in a management role before formal leadership training is offered, which is far too late to address the needs of new or emerging leaders. Even when training is provided, only a small percentage of participants feel it’s truly relevant or effective. As a result, leaders begin to burn out and move on, leaving a leadership gap in their wake.

It makes good business sense, but why don’t more organizations make training their leadership team a priority? The answer seems simple: developing effective leadership programs can be time-consuming and resource-intensive, and many organizations do not know where and how to start. But that is presuming that they are interested in the first place. Many times, the leadership team of an organization has difficulty seeing that their problems stem from within their own ranks, are complacent (our leaders are doing fine), believe in the school of hard knocks (I figured it out, so should they), or judge leadership training based on ineffective leadership training they have tried in the past. This becomes an impasse of poor leadership maintaining a status quo of poor leadership that repeats itself in perpetuity.

How do we change that?

The first step is recognizing the value of strong leadership and moving forward with concrete plans to develop effective leaders. When CTS builds up strategic plans for leadership development for an organization, they stress two key elements to effective leadership programs: intentionality and persistence. Organizations with the most effective leadership programs do so by baking leadership development into their core and making structured plans to prioritize ongoing development. This means:

• Identifying potential leaders: Scouting for leadership talent within your own ranks ensures that you are working with people who are already up to speed on your organization’s culture, goals, and processes, rewarding your top talent with career progression, and continuously adding to your leadership pipeline so you are never caught out with gaps in your leadership.
• Providing continuous training: Offering ongoing opportunities for growth and development at every level of leadership makes good sense. Behavioral change and learning are best done when concepts are reinforced over time, builds on a solid foundation of well-practiced competencies and knowledge, and is tailored as needed to different levels of leadership.
• Providing a strong, individualized support system: Individual assessments of strengths and weaknesses, external coaching and mentorship, and a mix of teaching methods help leaders develop according to their different needs and learning preferences.
• Linking the training to desired outcomes: For leadership training to be effective, it must be closely tied to an organization’s strategic goals and cultural priorities, and this cannot be just lip-service. Working backwards from where you want to be as an organization will give you a hint of the tactics you need to get there.

While this training is a significant investment in time and resources, it is crucial. According to CTS, strong leadership is vital to an organization’s success in all metrics. Leaders with the ability to make effective decisions can significantly improve overall organizational performance. They create a clear vision and rally the team toward common goals, which boosts productivity and innovation. In global markets, leadership skills such as adaptability and emotional intelligence are especially important for staying competitive. Strong leaders drive not only short-term results but also long-term growth and sustainability by ensuring the organization remains flexible and ready to tackle challenges.

Investing in leadership training is a strategic decision that can have a profound impact on your organization's success. By partnering with NorQuest College’s Custom Training, you can develop a leadership pipeline that will drive innovation, improve employee morale, and enhance your organization's reputation.

Contact us today to learn more about how we can customize a leadership training program for your organization.