Leader support goes beyond courses for better development

Deloitte recently featured a post about agile transformation, by Brenda Lam and Simon Minness, which discussed the role of a leader during change.

The post mentioned the importance of supporting someone leading cultural change within their organisation.

“Without proper support and coaching, they may struggle to adapt to the changing nature of what their teams need from them. To best support these leaders, be specific and measured about what they do and do not need to do,” the authors said.

Support beyond initial leader development is something both Angela Driver, Tasmanian Leaders general manager, and Joey Crawford, who has just completed a PhD in Leadership Behaviour through the University of Tasmania, highlighted.

“We need to keep pathways open after they finish so they can go beyond where they were,” Mr Crawford said.

Participants involved in Tasmanian Leaders, and its small business sister I-LEAD, are involved in ongoing peer mentoring and alumni events after the programs finish.

“Peers help to hold them to account as they move forward. They can level with others and they come out a lot better connected – and people use these connections,” Ms Driver said.

Peer coaching, mentoring and teaching are all areas that can be used to provide ongoing support to leaders and, in turn, they can support others, Ms Driver said.

“We encourage our participants to practice cascading, where they cascade the learning out to other people, friends and family, so extra people benefit from the content,” she said.

Another solution Mr Crawford suggested was a whole-of-system response to leadership, where development went beyond management nous to include digital skills, like the state’s Digital Ready program, and awareness around organisational culture and well-being to lessen the occurrence of mental health challenges.

“By having positive leaders it removes challenges before they emerge,” he said.