You’ll want to know whether your leadership development efforts are paying off. Here are some questions to ask your employees and yourself to help with that critical measurement:
Do participants feel they’re progressing? Ask people in the leadership program if they’re enjoying the process. Do they feel they’re learning and growing? How are they putting what they’ve learned into practice?
Are their leadership activities and responsibilities increasing? If so, how are they handling them? Do the people or departments they’re managing have higher levels of productivity, customer satisfaction, and so on?
What do others say? Solicit feedback from employees who have worked with those in leadership programs. Do they feel the candidates are developing into effective leaders? If so, in what fashion? Taking employee comments in aggregate, try to measure leaders’ success in terms of retention and employee engagement within their respective teams.
Are your development efforts positively affecting overall business goals? For instance, if one objective is to open additional branches, have beneficiaries of your leadership development efforts contributed to designing, implementing, or staffing new locations that are up and running?
Is there a ripple effect? A strong leader will also develop other leaders. Are individuals in your program reaching out to develop further talent?
Are you doing enough to keep the leaders you’re grooming? Don’t forget to develop and update incentives to keep candidates with the greatest leadership promise onboard. Make sure that compensation and opportunity are sufficient to ward off advances from rival businesses. Consider creating a mentoring group to bring developing peers together from time to time so they can share experiences and progress toward their goals.