4 Key Parameters Of The Best eLearning Partner For Leadership Programs
Organizations can’t wait for leaders to arrive; they need to identify their employees’ leadership strengths, analyze current and future organizational requirements, and find ways to nurture employees’ leadership potential. This is the primary reason for organizations to invest in career advancement courses and professional grooming programs that help employees cultivate leadership skills. The conventional approach to leadership development has the following drawbacks:
- Most leadership training happens informally on the job, yet leadership training programs are focused on classroom training.
- The budget for leadership programs is under scrutiny, but there is a greater demand on the leadership building capabilities of an organization.
Many organizations conduct off-site leadership development programs that offer employees a chance to escape from the humdrum of daily routine. While this is a welcome change for employees, they end up remembering only 10% of what they learn in the classroom training, as opposed to the 2/3 of information they retain while learning on-the-job.
This has led most organizations to look for an eLearning partner that can help them develop a leadership program that yields benefits. Here are the key parameters to look for in an eLearning partner to help you develop a leadership program.
1. Offers Custom eLearning Solutions
Many organizations make the mistake of following a leadership program that doles out information on a long list of leadership qualities or addresses a particular style of leadership, irrespective of the organizational culture. A leadership training program that includes only off-the-shelf content does not do much to improve the leadership qualities of employees.
A successful leadership development program needs to pay importance to context. What this means is that companies should ask themselves why they need the leadership training program. If it is for a growth strategy, they will need leaders who can devise strategies to expand business units. If the business requires a lot of interactions with the government, joint-venture partners, and multiple customers, then the leadership program needs to impart relationship building skills.
Leadership programs also need to include behavioral training. An organization needs to pick high-priority needs that are aligned with the organization’s business objectives and ensure the leadership training program addresses these training needs. The best eLearning partners know that there is no single prescription for leadership programs. To achieve organizational needs, custom eLearning is the way to go.
2. Supports Blended Learning Solutions
Best eLearning partners know that successful leadership programs cannot be developed only through online training. For leadership programs to be effective and to drive continuous improvement, you need to combine formal and informal methods of training. Classroom training, learning from others, and online training programs are not discrete solutions. To develop a leadership program that brings great results, organizations must integrate these activities in the form of blended learning programs.
3. Advocates A ‘Guide On The Side’ Approach
eLearning vendors can follow 2 different approaches to Instructional Design. A ‘sage on the stage’ approach refers to providing direct instructions to learners on what they need to do to achieve a particular training objective. While this will work for compliance training programs, it will most certainly fail in leadership development programs.
When you opt for leadership programs from the best eLearning partner, they know that it is better to follow a ‘guide on the side’ approach. A ‘guide on the side’ approach means placing learners at the center of the learning process. Participants in a leadership program need to be trained on critical thinking and problem-solving skills. Real-life scenarios and activities that give learners a chance to reflect and think through solutions are strategies that work for leadership programs.
4. Has Proven Expertise In Rapid eLearning Development
Theoretical knowledge is not enough in leadership training. Leadership programs need to include activities along with adequate support resources. This can be provided through rapid eLearning programs that are just perfect for busy working professionals.
Let’s consider a leadership program where learners need to be taught decision-making skills. The classroom training can include role plays to practice decision-making. Online training programs designed for career advancement often require learners to be trained quickly in order to fill vacant positions in the organization.
According to a Towards Maturity Report [1], BBC transformed leadership development with the use of rapid eLearning in its blended learning leadership program. An authoring tool like Articulate Storyline can be used to create branched scenarios that lead learners into realistic situations which allow them to explore different areas of decision-making. Learners are also given the opportunity to experience the consequences of their mistakes in hypothetical situations that mimic the real world and learn from their mistakes.
An effective leadership program is a process that happens over time, not a one-time event. The best eLearning partner will help you develop a customized leadership program that matches the needs of your organization.
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