According to Gallup, leadership is the #1 issue that 79% of companies are struggling with.
There are many reasons why companies have issues with leadership, and though I can’t go into them all, I know that one major reason is their method of promoting high performers.
A friend recently told me about a young man named Tim, who had landed a position in sales at a large firm right out of college. Tim is an amazing salesperson, one of the best the company had ever seen, closing deals time after time. So after a few months, the company promoted Tim to a managerial position.
Tim’s new position had him leading the sales team. Rather than doing what he’s really good at—selling—he was now asked to do something completely different—leading—and he needed a brand new skill set to fill his new role. Not only did the company lose its best salesperson, but it also put someone into a leadership position without any training or prior experience.
This is a problem, because Tim had a whole team of sales reps waiting for his guidance. Sales reps that, without a good leader, wouldn’t be able to do their jobs as effectively either.
So why are many companies worried about their leadership? Because they’ve “rewarded” their high performers by promoting them without giving these novice leaders the tools to excel.
This is why it’s never too early to begin leadership training and why it shouldn’t be reserved for the C-suite.
Smart companies look at every single employee as a future leader and realize that even the greenest, newest hires may be in leadership roles in just a few years.
The big question I have is: do you want to spend the time preparing the leaders of tomorrow today, or do you want to wait until they are already in a position of leadership to give them the skills they need to succeed?
As a speaker and author, Curtis Zimmerman has impacted over one million people with his life-changing messages and award-winning programs. Curtis is an expert at transforming organizations by inspiring individuals to live their lives at performance level.
Want to be inspired? Check out his podcast The Next 24 Hours.
