The long-term process of leadership development must not be underestimated, and the short-term leadership development event must not be overestimated.

What doesn’t work is when a leader sends their team to a leadership development or personal growth event, and they expect them to transform right away.

1. The Right Leadership Development

I have experienced this many times in my previous roles with my previous leaders, and they expected a 100% improvement in us as individuals and as a team.

As mentioned above, the short-term leadership development or personal growth event must not be overestimated.

An event, whether it is one day, or 5 days long will inspire people, it will give the team new tools, it will raise the team’s awareness and it will invite the team to think differently for a short period of time.

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When you are at an event you will not take in everything that is shared or taught by the facilitators and speakers. There will be somethings that you will miss, and you will need the help of others to recall certain things.

Attending a leadership development or personal growth event that happens once or twice a year will not enable you, your team, your organisation, or your culture to transform. It takes a process and too many people think that the event is the whole process, it is not.

The event only supports the process or starts the process off. Don’t get me wrong, attending an event will add value to the people in attendance and will motivate them. Although, events don’t always involve everyone because it is not always possible to do so.

The event is still very important and still needs to be attended by you and your team. Attending a workshop with me or somebody like me is an event and can’t be the end of the process.

I want you to develop a leadership development process for yourself and your team that is ongoing, not a one-off. The engineers who attended my workshop were inspired to take action on what they learned, their awareness of leadership in engineering was raised, and their mindset changed.

It was then up to them and their leaders to take the action required and put their leadership development process in motion.

A leadership development process takes some time, it is not a one-off event, and it has a purpose for the long-term. As Simon Sinek says “If you work out for 90 minutes once, you will not get in shape. But, if you workout for 20 minutes every day then you will get in shape”.

2. A Consistent Process

The 90-minute workout is an event, the 20-minute workout every day is a consistent process, and that’s what we need, a consistent long-term process. When creating the process, you must involve everyone who is going to benefit.

It is basically a consistent feed of leadership and personal growth content to your team, that will motivate and inspire them to transform themselves, and transform the culture into a highly effective leadership culture.

You are probably thinking, “how am I going to feed my team leadership and personal growth content consistently through a process?”

Well, as I have stated before, the best way that some of the best organisations in the world do this is by carrying out a book study. Book studies are not very common, but when they are carried out, they are very helpful.

As I said at the beginning of this section, “The long-term process of leadership development must not be underestimated.” Most leaders in most organisations throughout the world are not interested in carrying out a book study with their teams.

When I have recommended it to the organisations I have worked with, some of the leaders haven’t even responded, they just gave me a strange look.

But, you need to understand that a book study in the workplace is when a team gets together and they lead themselves towards transformation. There is no underestimating the power of a book study.

Think about when you were younger and you started school, you didn’t go for one or two days as an event and suddenly you’re fully educated. No, you went to school for years, then college and you are still educating yourself now. That is because education is a lifelong process, not an event.

3. Book Studies

One of the actions that I recommended the engineers, and their engineering leaders take at the end of my workshop with them was to carry out a book study, using my book “Influence is Leadership”. They already had copies of this book, so they had everything they needed to complete a successful book study.

After checking n with them about a month later, they told me that they did carry out the book study using my book, and that the engineers were working through a leadership development process (another recommendation of mine).

When I heard that, the joy I felt that they had taken my advice and were seeing success with it was the best feeling in the world.

After speaking to one of the engineering leaders in this organisation later down the line, they updated me that they were still bought-in to the leadership development process.

The team they led were all bought-in and it became part of their 6 month and 12-month development plan, along with their engineering competencies.

This said to me that the culture had changed to a highly effective leadership culture and the whole team were practicing the leadership principles that I taught.

Even the other engineering teams that were not on the original workshop were going through the same process. So, the organisational culture was transforming into a highly effective leadership culture.

When you plan to carry out your book study with your team with one of my books, they are set up very simply. Each book has ten chapters and are divided into three sections. So, focus on one section at a time because they are easy to understand and even easier to read.

4. Book Study Involvement

Make sure you are involved in the book study as it will show your team that you are bought-in to the process too, this is very important as it is leading by example.

When I say focus on one section within each chapter at a time, it can vary as some teams prefer to do it differently. Overall, it is up to you how you lead your book study.

Make sure that you allow your team to share their thoughts on what they think the main points in the section are, and how they can be utilised within the team. Advise the team to highlight their main points in each section and don’t be afraid to share their thoughts.

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Some members of the team might not think that the section you are currently going through is important, so you must allow them to sit out at this moment. Inspire each member of the team to read a paragraph each so that everybody is participating, and you’re not seen to be favouring anybody.

Depending on the size of your team, the normal maximum for a book study is ten people, so keep that in mind. Ensure that everybody participating has a copy of the book being studied.

When I first started carrying out book studies, I would study John Maxwell or Simon Sinek books because at the time they were my leadership heroes. In the end it doesn’t matter what book you study if it is congruent with what you are trying to accomplish and helps the team to grow.

Keep the book studies going through the leadership development process you create as this will be a major part of the content you share. The book you study is your decision but ensure you can use it to inspire your people to grow.

Being a leader of people is a privilege, but it is also a responsibility. The responsibility is to inspire your people to get out of their comfort zone, grow and be their best selves every day of their life.

I welcome hearing how this post has influenced the way you think, the way you lead, or the results you have achieved because of what you’ve learned in it. Please feel free to share your thoughts with me by commenting below.

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All the best,

Tom (Lead, Grow, Influence)