Three reasons to invest in your leadership team now – and a tool to help

Hard to believe Q4 is just around the corner. In a year that’s felt, at points, like it would never end, we’re headed into the final stretch. Many of our clients have found ways to operate effectively in our virtual world, and there are businesses that are thriving. There are also businesses that are struggling. Recent data from the Conference Board indicates a best-case scenario of -5% growth in the US economy for 2020 with – optimistically – a slight growth uptick in 2021.

What can you do, then, to make sure your company is positioned to leverage this turnaround? Invest now in your leadership teams. Ensure that your leaders are operating at the top of their game, both individually and collectively.

With cost constraints and budget challenges facing us through the end of the year, how does an investment in development make sense? Three simple and critical reasons:

Reason Number One: Now more than ever, people need strong leaders who have a unified vision. With so much uncertainty, people need stability. Employees look to their leaders to provide guidance and stability in the midst of change. Clarity in direction and priorities can keep your teams more focused and productive.  Effective leaders know how to balance results and relationships; to value innovation and process, and to do this in a pragmatic way that makes sense for the organization.

Reason Number Two: Simple: retention. Your top talent is your competitor’s top prospect. In a stable or even a shrinking economy, company leaders set the tone. In conjunction with the Board, the leadership team makes decisions that impact the company’s very viability. Skilled, resourceful, and talented executives will just about always be able to find a job. In fact, as recently as April 2020, global executive search firm WorldBridge Partners reported an annual CAGR of more than 300% in recruiting for senior executive talent. Can you afford to lose your leaders right now? No. Retention matters. Invest in your leaders. An investment in their capability is an investment in your company.

Reason Number Three: it’s just good business: strong and diverse leadership teams yield better results. It’s no secret to business and HR leaders that leadership teams have a significant impact on the bottom line. Great leadership teams enhance it; poor leadership teams detract. There’s a difference in the leadership behaviors of high performing companies. These companies clearly define and articulate leadership behaviors, and have a practice of bringing leaders together in forums that help them network and build relationships.  Author Vince Molinaro finds a 25-30+% gap in these behaviors between high and low performing companies. Even in our virtual world, connection and leadership development matters.

It’s clear: high-performing teams provide companies with an undeniable advantage over their competitors.

We know that companies across the world spend billions of dollars on team effectiveness each year. We also know that leadership teams rarely perform at their maximum capacity. That’s because most of the models devoted to creating high-performing teams focus solely on skills and experience, and ignore the influence of personality.

Achieving the right mix of skills, experience, and personality is the key to a productive team and an engaged workforce. Get that mix wrong, by even just one individual, and the results can be disastrous.  Get it right and you outpace the competition.

We can help.

Nova Leadership helps teams understand internal dynamics in a new and significant way. We use the Team Hogan assessment to identify and understand three internal dynamics:

Team Strengths and Weaknesses: In order to maximize strengths, high performing teams should have a balance of people across five key psychological roles.

Potential Team Fracture Lines: In order to maintain harmony, teams have to recognize and mitigate the negative personality characteristics that can derail success.

Team Culture and Shared Values: Shared values and drivers are key in working toward a common goal, and are critical to the ongoing success of any team.

Grounded in more than three decades of validated research, Hogan assessments scientifically measure personality for business. Hogan challenges academic tradition and demonstrates the impact of personality on organizational success and workplace performance.

Let’s face it, moving the needle as an organization is hard. And harder now than ever. In order to create sustainable change, leaders are asked to change behavior - and to become aware of their beliefs at a deeply personal level. This insight demands more than traditional training techniques.

That’s why we approach team effectiveness with data and discernment.  Our Team Hogan workshops create a deeper understanding that will change the way leaders lead... and that’s the type of change that lasts.

Nova Leadership has the skills and experience to work with senior teams to address the depth and complexity that is leadership.  We create insight and accelerate learning that moves leaders from current state to a better state.

Reach out to talk to us about Hogan Team Effectiveness for your leadership teams.

Change language. Change behavior.

Change the game.