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Professional Development Goals

January 20, 2020

It’s time to focus on your 20/20 vision

For many managers it can be relatively simple to pinpoint where their team members need to improve. Productivity and output can be easily tracked and achievable goals can be identified based on improved statistics, but what about the professional development goals of the management themselves?

Having a manager who is motivated and working on their own professional development will have a positive impact on their team’s goals too. Michael Jordan once said “there’s no I in team, but there is in win” and it’s always important to consider your own impact on the targets of the people that you manage. This is where leadership development training comes in handy.

A good leadership development course teaches the key skills that managers need to not only motivate people around them, but also to become better leaders. From learning about how to enhance communication techniques ensuring that you get your message across and are able to listen to feedback, to utilising techniques to become a better motivator, studying how to lead more effectively can bring a multitude of benefits.

How do you find the perfect leadership course?

The first step is to identify the skills that you want to work on as a manager or a leader. If you don’t have someone managing your performance, it’s worth setting some goals to work towards. For example, if you want to increase productivity, what will you do to make a difference? After all, if your leadership style hasn’t resulted in dramatic increases in the past, why would it necessarily do so in 2020. You must keep in mind that this kind of reflection isn’t intended to beat yourself up, but is aimed at creating a clear, realistic, and measurable vision.

Once you’ve decided on your professional development needs, the next step is to find an appropriate Management and Leadership Development Course. Classroom based learning can be costly both in time and money and, in some cases, the courses can be quite prescriptive. Consider whether you would agree for someone who you managed to go on a training course if you didn’t feel that it fitted their or the company’s needs. So, choosing training that limits how and what you learn might not be the most attractive option.

It’s also important to remember that the majority of us learn through doing. Sitting in a classroom is not going to help you learn how to implement what you’ve discovered in the workplace. Some of the most effective leadership development courses work on a 70/20/10 basis. 70% of the course is on the job, 20% is coaching, and 10% is classroom based. This allows delegates to put their learning into action and to reflect on their successes and failures. These types of training also provide an opportunity to accurately measure the impact of your learning.

If this type of training sounds attractive, you may want to consider speaking to Dakota Blue Consulting about tailoring a management development programme for you as an individual or for delivery to your senior business managers within your firm. The combination of interactive sessions, coupled with individual coaching and accountability delivered by Dakota Blue experts is guaranteed to provide participants with the skills and confidence to improve their management and leadership style. Get in touch if you think this is something that will help you achieve your professional development goals in 2020.