How to implement a Neuroleadership Development Program effectively in your organization?
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by - Alan Caugant, CEO SUPERHUMAIN™
The workplace is ever-changing, and leaders must develop skills to keep up.
Neuroleadership development is a program of learning solutions aimed at improving the skill sets, abilities and confidence of current business leaders, and bringing on the company’s next generation of future leaders.
You want the people you carefully selected and recruited to grow in their careers and progress through your organization. Effective Neuroleadership development programs (NLDPs) provide the opportunity and guidance so employees—especially those in leadership positions— can develop the skills they need to manage their careers, lead others to success, and contribute great work to the organization.
If a rising tide lifts all boats, then creating a neuroleadership development program benefits everyone. Great leaders drive higher team engagement and produce better business results. This means leadership development is an essential part of your employee experience. You may wonder, where to start ?
Many organizations turn to us, at SUPERHUMAIN, asking where to start when it comes to developing a world-class employee experience program. The best-case scenario involves developing leadership competencies that reflect the unique industry, business, and needs of your organization. If your organization hasn’t codified those leadership competencies, then, this article will help you to define the foundation of your Neuroleadership Development Program. Keep in mind, you are not alone in this process.
What is Neuroleadership Executive Development?
Neuroleadership Executive development is a way to help develop performance and skills in executive employees by integrating the latest insights from cognitive neuroscience. Another name for it is neuro-management development.
Typically, a Neuroleadership executive development program will focus on developing leadership skills specifically.
Though this type of neuroleadership training is usually designed for executives, it can also be used for upper management, even if they aren’t technically an executive.
Organizations can also put new executive hires through neuroleadership executive development training before they step into a leadership position. For some companies, particularly those that fill leadership positions from internal promotions or start-ups that grow very rapidly, executive development is critical for ensuring leaders are competent and confident in their new roles.
Neuroleadership executive development aims to:
- Improve managerial performance
- Prepare people for the challenges they’ll encounter in future roles
- Help people handle challenging situations in a more efficient way
It can also help leaders evolve and mature before a promotion or change in roles.
While neuroleadership executive development is often offered as a one-off training program, it’s more effective as a systematic and ongoing learning process for managers and leaders. Indeed, learning and development at any level should be thought of as a set of practices and approach rather than a one-off event.
Why has Neuroleadership executive development below the executive level become so urgent?
With remote work now becoming a part of many companies’ new realities, there’s a new urgency for executive development. Managers need to adapt to new realities and a quickly evolving landscape.
According to Deloitte’s 2021 Global Human Capital Trends report, 70% of executives say that a shift to remote work has had a positive impact on the well-being of employees. But this shift requires changes to make remote work sustainable.
24% of executives agree that investing in team leader training is the top factor in achieving this sustainability. And it makes sense.
Traditional leadership styles don’t always work in a remote environment. As a result, leaders need to develop new skills, including cognitive agility and inclusive leadership skills, to adapt the way they orchestrate work and lead and develop their teams.
Based on Deloitte’s report, developing human capital and capability is critical to transforming work positively. 45% of executives agree that the most critical factor is to build an organizational culture that celebrates growth, adaptability, and resilience.
41% say that building workforce capability through upskilling, reskilling, and mobility is what matters most. Both of these factors require leadership that models growth, resilience, and continuous learning.
Leaders can become more thoughtful about what they are modeling, and also actually become more adaptable and resilient, through the right type of executive development.
The right type of executive development can help leaders grow, personally and as leaders, making them more adaptable and effective in a changing hybrid world.
The main goals of Neuroleadership executive development
Here are three of the main goals you can fulfil using Neuroleadership executive development in your organization.
1. Close a skill gap for future Neuroleaders
Rarely will a potential manager have all the necessary competencies to become the SUPERHUMAIN leader or the best version of themselves they can be. In fact, in our research studies, we have found only 3% of C-suite Leaders express a whole-brain approach in their management — everyone else has to work at it.
Neuroleadership executive development can help fix the skill gap for these developing leaders. And even natural leaders may need some development within the context of the organization and where it is going.
Neuroleadership executive development can also close a skill gap at an organizational level. 78% of leaders say that skill-building is necessary for long-term business growth.
2. Keep a competitive advantage
It’s not easy to keep up with the competition in an increasingly competitive landscape. But highly developed leaders can give your organization an edge against that competition.
What’s more, your leaders — knowledgeable, committed, inspired — are a unique resource that no other organization can replicate.
Unlike a product or service, leaders have their own unique sets of strengths, perspectives, and skills that can set an organization apart. They have their own approaches and problem-solving techniques unique to them.
3. Develop leaders with strategic thinking
It’s possible to hire SUPERHUMAIN Neuroleaders from outside the organization. But developing leaders from within can help increase employee retention.
That’s because it can help increase their sense of belonging. Seeing a commitment to leadership development from within can also help employees understand their own career path and aspirations.
By developing your own employees into leaders, you can also shape them to have the exact skills you need. And, effective leaders are crucial for businesses for many reasons.
For one, powerful leaders can use creativity and innovation to find new solutions to old problems. They also have the decision-making skills necessary to make difficult choices.
Good leaders can also develop their own teams to grow and evolve, too. They can develop new Neuroleaders through mentoring. So, by developing one leader, you’re actually developing several leaders.
Executive professional development and leadership skills
Executive coaching can help develop crucial Neuroleadership executive skills. Here are seven of these important skills that you can help your leaders develop in your organization:
1. Communication
At the heart of any SUPERHUMAIN Neuroleader’s role is communication.
Communication skills are crucial for Neuroleaders to:
- Help develop an organization
- Increase a team’s performance
- Reduce misunderstandings between team members
Communication also helps them facilitate teamwork and be more collaborative.
2. Creativity
Employers consider creativity to be a top skill in the workforce.
With this skill, Neuroleaders can go from crisis to creativity by thinking outside of the box when they encounter challenges.
NeuroLeaders who are creative can also help organizations innovate and stand out in their industry.
3. Listening
Knowing how to communicate matters, but knowing how to perform active listening is just as important as a leader in the digital era.
According to an Emtrain Workplace Culture Report, 10% of employees believe that their leaders wouldn’t listen to them if they made a complaint.
Employees can trust their leaders more if these leaders show that they’re able to listen. As a result, those employees can share their opinions but also feel heard and validated.
This, in turn, can lead to a better-performing team.
4. Compassion
Listening is closely tied to compassion.
According to Emtrain’s Workplace Culture Report, 86% of employees say that compassion is important at work. But only 42% say that people in their workplace show empathy.
Plus, 31% say their leaders lack empathy. This is why it’s important to develop empathy in leaders.
We are born with the capacity for compassion, but compassion leaders often have to be developed. An empathetic leader can’t just understand someone else’s feeling. They have to also understand what it is like to be in their shoes. Combined with compassion, empathy can be a powerful force for finding effective solutions and motivating action.
5. An ability to motivate
Employees won’t always be naturally motivated to perform well at work. Sometimes factors like performance bonuses or an exciting challenge can help increase motivation.
But motivation usually falls with time. It’s a Neuroleader’s responsibility to find ways to keep their people inspired.
When a Neuroleader can motivate their team, they can keep both productivity and morale high.
6. A strategic and growth mindset
While it’s important to have attention to detail, leaders also need a strategic mindset. This can help them see the bigger picture and overcome business challenges.
They can then delegate the details to their team while they focus on the big-picture business strategy.
7. Delegation
Speaking of delegation, this is another important skill that business leaders need to develop.
Being able to delegate doesn’t come naturally to everyone. Some high-performance employees will be able to focus on the details and achieve great work. But when it’s time for them to focus on the big picture, they’ll struggle to delegate the tasks they used to do.
It can be easy to default to the mindset that anything is done better when you do it yourself.
But, this mindset can be detrimental to a team. It’ll especially be the case when team members don’t feel like their leader trusts them to do the job they were hired to do.
Luckily, delegation is like any other skill — people can develop it over time with guidance and practice. With leadership development, emerging leaders can learn to delegate effectively. In turn, this can increase the performance of an entire team.
How to choose a Neuroleadership executive development program?
Neuroleadership executive development matters, but it doesn’t happen on its own. Organizations will usually need outside help to deploy a leadership development program and manage the enrollment of their neuroleaders.
Insiders can train other leaders in the organization. However, it’s important to also seek outside help to fill gaps in skills since there can be institutional blind spots to the gaps. Over time, if neuroleadership development is left only to insiders, these gaps can perpetuate and create larger cultural issues.
But more than one outside solution exists. Here are three tips for choosing the Neuroleadership executive development program that’s right for your organization.
1. Determine where and how Neuroleaders can access training
Neuroleadership executive education programs traditionally happen face to face. But if your organization relies on remote work, you need executive development that meets your leaders where they are, often online or virtual instead of physically in person.
Meeting virtually doesn’t mean they aren’t meeting “live” and engaging with a real leadership coach or peers. This type of interaction and live practice tends to be more engaging and result in more measurable growth than an asynchronous leadership course, no matter how convenient.
This is especially true if you have leaders working across the country or even the world.
Even if you had the best program available, it wouldn’t be of much help if you cannot deploy it for your developing leaders.
2. Understand your leaders’ development needs
Not all organizations have the same executive development needs. Understand the unique business and workforce challenges of your company and industry. Check in on pulse and other workforce surveys as well as exit interviews of those leaving the company. This can provide valuable insight into what needs your people have, where they find leadership lacking, and how they’d like to develop themselves.
Which skills need development or improvement? What weaknesses will you need to account for?
This will also help you pick the right development program for your team.
Think about the learning experience based on those needs — not necessarily on the name of the organization that provides the training. You want a solution that can best fit your organization’s unique needs.
3. Find an ongoing solution
The best Neuroleadership executive development programs provide an ongoing program experience. That’s because one of the most important roles of executive neuroleaders in today’s environment is that they constantly grow, stay open to learning, and remain humble to all that they don’t know.
No one is ever done learning. Neuroleadership executive development can be about adopting the mindsets and practices to stay in a curious, open, learner mode regardless of how much power or responsibility you achieve. But this type of development — and what gets in the way of this type of growth — can be very personal. That’s why for the very top, personalized, ongoing executive development has long been the standard.
To become the best version of themselves, the leaders in your organization need to keep developing their skills and resilience over time.
Implement executive development in your organization
If you want to develop resilient leaders with valuable skills, it’s important to implement executive development.
SUPERHUMAIN Neuroleadership Institute uses whole-person growth to drive company performance. We help organizations develop SUPERHUMAIN leaders by giving individuals the tools they need to thrive — not just at work but in all aspects of their lives.
We use technology and neuroscience to empower Neuroleaders to learn new skills, ignite fresh passions, and become the best version of themselves.
Looking Ahead for SUPERHUMAIN Neuroleadership coaching and/or Training?
Take advantage of Alan Caugant’s extensive experience coaching leaders worldwide and his deep expertise in designing neuroleadership corporate training solutions for your teams. No matter which stage of leadership you are at, we can partner with you and meet your business needs. Explore our executive coaching programs, corporate training courses, or hire Alan Caugant as your speaker so that your organization will become agile, adaptive, and future-resilient.