Latest Trends in Leadership Development

My days in the military taught me that you must always learn to adapt to varying situations. Tried and tested methods may not always be reliable, and sometimes, they may no longer be as relevant and practical as they once were. You should never be daunted by new strategies and innovative perspectives, and this mindset is especially useful for leaders who spearhead today’s dynamic and challenging business environment. 

The latest trends in leadership development include mobile learning, gamification, and blended learning. The thrust is to meet participants’ varying needs and expectations for maximum effectiveness. There’s also a strong inclination toward promoting wellness and compassion in leadership. 

This article will explore the latest trends in leadership development, beginning with the unique advantages of mobile learning, given the new generation’s pivotal role in today’s business world. We will also discuss gamification and blended learning, as well as the emergence of compassionate leadership and the promotion of health and wellness. To get the ball rolling, let’s dissect the urgency of investing in leadership development early. 

The Importance of Leadership Development

Having a solid leadership development program for your organization is a surefire way to ensure a healthy leadership pipeline. Leaders may come and go. Some may search for greener pastures, others will be up for retirement, while others may choose to stay. The point is you always have to ensure that leadership gaps are promptly filled to minimize inefficiency and chaos in the workplace. 

The biggest mistake most business owners make is not investing in leadership development early. Most direct their investments on senior leadership development, but at this stage, most leaders have already established solid skills and behaviors for themselves (unfortunately, including the bad ones). As the saying goes, “It’s hard to teach an old dog new tricks.”

When this happens, emerging leaders are virtually left to fend for themselves. They rely only on themselves to learn the skills necessary for effective leadership. Most of them resort to emulating their seniors. It would be great if they had excellent role models in the organization, but what happens when they start mirroring even the unfavorable behaviors of those in senior leadership positions?

This is how bad habits are fortified and a negative work culture is created. 

Investing in leadership development early brings about plenty of benefits. Let’s take a look at some of them:

• Effective transfer of organizational know-how and best practices
• Higher levels of motivation 
• Better job satisfaction
• Better work culture
• Higher employee retention rate
• Higher returns on investment (pertaining to leadership development) 
• Healthier leadership pipeline

The Latest Trends in Leadership Development

Leadership is a crucial factor in the success of any business. Bad leaders can quickly bring a company down, while good leaders can take it to new heights. That’s why leaders must remain relevant and competitive in their field and ensure they’re up-to-date with the latest trends in the industry. 

Let’s take a look at the latest trends in leadership development:

1. Mobile Learning

Currently, millennials are the dominant generation in terms of numbers. They make up about ¼ of the world’s population — that’s roughly 1.8 billion millennials. Statistics say that by 2030, the majority of managers in various industries will belong to the millennial generation. 

This is why leadership development is slowly evolving and adapting to address the needs of our future managers. Traditional approaches may no longer be reliable in training them to excel in their chosen fields. What we need are techniques and tools they’re familiar and comfortable with. 

According to Harvard Business Review, the average age of a first-time manager is 30. However, generally, it’s not until these leaders are 40 that they get their first taste of leadership training. A decade-long gap provides enough time for these leaders to develop bad habits and unprofitable practices in their leadership style. It can also lead to the stagnation of their know-how, skills, and experiences, leading to incompetence and ineffectiveness as a leader. 

This is where mobile learning steps in. It’s designed to meet the needs and expectations of our future leaders today. After all, it’s never too early to start teaching leadership skills, right?

Mobile learning offers alternatives to make leadership development more accessible to everyone. No matter where you are in the globe and no matter what you’re currently engaged in, mobile learning makes leadership training possible and convenient for you. 

2. Gamification and Virtual Reality

Gamification is the application of certain game elements — scoring, rules, elements of competition, leaderboards, etc. — to leadership development. These concepts can be utilized in the business setting and help make leadership training more exciting, engaging, and fruitful.

Integrating elements of gaming in leadership development results in higher engagement, better absorption of learnings, and boosted productivity.

However, the danger with gamification is the possibility of participants getting lost in the game element and completely forgetting about the program’s primary purpose. That’s why it’s essential that this leadership development strategy be utilized for targeted behaviors and skills. Otherwise, investments might go to waste, especially since gamification in leadership development can be pretty expensive. 

Gamification is all about organizing a specific scenario in such a way that the participants can easily apply the concepts they learn to real-life workplace scenarios. In a game of chess, for instance, the goal is to move around the board, collect as many of your opponent’s pieces as possible, and eventually vanquish the king to win the game. 

Translating that to leadership development, the goal is to learn various skills that will allow you to expertly lead your team through highs and lows in the business setting. You must learn how to vanquish the challenges and obstacles that will come your way so you can move forward in the mission to achieve the set goals.

3. Compassionate Leadership

Gone are the days when good leaders were known to be overly professional, never letting personal matters interfere with work. These days, compassionate leadership is fast becoming a preferred leadership style in the workplace. Concepts like compassion, empathy, and emotional intelligence are no longer confined to homes, classrooms, and other social setups. 

Compassionate leaders show empathy and emotional intelligence in the way they go about their business and deal with their team. Empathy is understanding and sharing the feelings of others, while emotional intelligence is one’s ability to expertly control and express emotions judiciously. 

Both of these are instrumental in establishing solid relationships within the team, creating a positive work culture, and fostering trust and respect within the organization — the trademarks of compassionate leadership.

Compassionate leadership is spreading like wildfire that in the US alone, around 20% of companies focus on empathy training for their leaders. This was highlighted by Apple CEO Tim Cook during his 2017 MIT commencement address. He also stressed the value of fostering empathy in the workplace, telling the audience to pay no heed to people who might convince them to disregard this essential soft skill.

Additionally, a survey revealed that 80% of the 150 CEOs who participated recognized empathy, active listening, and prompt responding as among the competencies crucial to leadership success. 

To give an example, compassionate leadership can be seen in how someone reacts when there’s an unforeseen issue in the workplace. Let’s say there’s a snowstorm one morning, and people are coming in late for work. 

Traditional leaders would reprimand their employees for being tardy and not preparing ahead despite frequent warnings from the weather station. Compassionate leaders, on the other hand, would understand their employees’ predicament, empathize with them, and forego any of the designated sanctions for tardiness. 

4. Health and Wellness

Work-life balance, and the promotion of physical and mental health, are also at the forefront of the latest leadership development trends. 

You might see workplaces these days with standing desks, balance boards, special rooms designated for exercise and other physical activities, and extended breaks for group wellness activities like walking or yoga. Some leaders even hire nutritionists and physical fitness experts to encourage and educate employees about healthier lifestyles. 

Leaders themselves prioritize their mental and physical health so they can be resilient and better equipped to face various business challenges. Poor mental and physical health can adversely affect team dynamics, such as engagement, collaboration, efficiency, and productivity. 

According to American Psychiatric Association statistics, US employers lose roughly $44 – $55 billion yearly in lost productivity due to poor physical or mental health. This is why leaders from some of the top companies promote these concepts to their team members:

• Regular exercise
• Balanced nutrition
• Adequate sleep and rest
• Mindfulness practices (such as yoga and meditation)
• Consultations with mental health professionals when necessary

5. Blended Learning

Leadership development will only be successful if the learnings being shared are genuinely absorbed by participants and accurately applied in actual work scenarios. However, the dilemma lies in the fact that not all participants think, act, and feel the same way. They all respond differently to stimuli — a particular leadership development technique may work wonders for one person, while it can be virtually futile for others. 

For that reason, leadership development programs are now keen on including the 70-20-10 framework in their roster. Here, 3 types of learning methods are utilized:

• 70% experiential learning
• 20% social learning 
• 10% formal training

Formal training comprises seminars, lectures, and other classroom-type setups. It’s a great way to pass information on to participants, especially those who respond well to structure and predictability. 

Social learning can be facilitated through coaching or mentoring. With the help of a senior leader, participants can focus on developing some of their most crucial leadership skills, like:

• Communication
• Self-awareness and self-management 
• Decision-making
• Problem-solving

Coaching and mentoring are often referred to interchangeably, but they differ in specific ways. Coaching involves a more formal, one-on-one leadership development program with a senior leader or coach. There are distinct goals to be achieved and specific skills to work on. 

Mentoring involves one-on-one interaction with a senior leader, too, but it is more informal and open-ended. The mentor-mentee relationship focuses on a broader scope of leadership competencies and generally lasts longer than coaching. 

Lastly, experiential learning essentially encapsulates “learning by doing.” This is a great way to ensure that participants know how to apply the learnings they acquired from the program to actual scenarios in the workplace. 

Fun, outdoor activities are great options to facilitate experiential learning. Take a look at some of these ideas:

• Scavenger hunts. They foster strategic thinking and problem-solving. 
• Camping. It helps establish teamwork, collaboration, and the value of task delegation.  
• Mountain climbing. It helps enhance resilience, critical thinking, and decision-making.

If you’re eager to know more about how experiential training can help develop the best leaders for your business, book us a free call right away so we can introduce you to the fun and exciting concept of outdoor learning. What better way to facilitate leadership development than through highly engaging, unforgettable, and constructive activities? We at Sancus Leadership are happy to be your leadership development partners!

Final Thoughts

The modern workplace is envisioned to be dynamic and inclusive, capable of adapting to the changing times. Leadership development has been working hard at evolving to cater to the industry’s ever-changing needs, hence, there are new trends to consider, especially if you’re keen on staying up-to-date, relevant, and effective. 

The latest trends in leadership development aim to address the evolving needs, wants, and expectations of future leaders. Remember, it’s never too early to invest in creating a robust leadership pipeline for your business.