As work environments continue to evolve, the focus needs to be on preparing for further change. By making sure your company has a leadership development solution in place and prioritizes the right leadership development topics in 2022, you’ll be more equipped to adapt as the world undoubtedly continues to change at a rapid pace.

So what should your organization’s leadership development strategy focus on this year?

1. Essential Skills for New Leaders & Managers

Amid the pandemic, a larger percentage of older adults retired, with the numbers of retirees aged 55 and older jumping by 3.5 million.

With that in mind, as well as the “Great Resignation” and the realities of remote and hybrid workplaces, most companies simply aren’t set up for success when it comes to developing the next generation of leaders.

RELATED: 6 Reasons Why Good Employees Leave — Beyond Compensation

Thanks to all of these factors, the need to develop new leaders and managers has likely never been greater.

The skills needed for new managers to succeed in 2022 include being able to:

• Support people
• Listen skillfully
• Communicate effectively
• Clarify expectations
• Deliver actionable feedback
• Create belonging
• Conduct effective interviews

Assuming that your employees are gaining all of these skills on the job isn’t realistic. Most often, individual contributors need to focus on accomplishing their day-to-day tasks, not understanding how to be more effective leaders or how to manage direct reports.

By incorporating leadership development around the essential skills needed for new leaders and managers, especially in a remote or hybrid work environment, you’ll be setting your company up for success in 2022 and beyond.

2. Enhancing Productivity & Accountability

Between the global pandemic, childcare difficulties, health concerns, financial stress, social unrest, and more, there is a lot going on in the world. People are feeling it all and being able to manage their productivity is harder than ever.

Maintaining compassion and taking a human-centered approach to the difficulties of working and living in today’s world should be combined with supporting your team through development on:

• Creating a culture of accountability
• Time management
• Monitoring and sharing results
• Leveraging resources
• Overcoming the fear of failure

Resorting to spying on remote workers leads to demoralized employees and unenthusiastic candidates.

Avoid desperate solutions that will have detrimental long-term results. Instead, empower your employees by helping them work smarter. Enable them to develop a greater awareness of how they can cultivate a growth mindset and drive results despite all of the difficulties surrounding work today.

3. Embracing DEI&B

Inclusive workplaces are the only way forward, so it’s time for your organization to leave all biased, outdated thinking behind.

But despite even your best intentions, bias can’t be erased overnight. That’s why it’s so important to train your employees on how to overcome it by being able to break it down, develop a global perspective, and question their assumptions.

In addition to understanding bias, they need to be well-versed in inclusive leadership through understanding:

• Where inclusion begins
• Building trust
• Creating psychological safety
• Developing belonging
• Becoming a more inclusive leader

Diverse teams that bring together a wide variety of perspectives are often much more successful at taking on the greatest challenges, so make sure you focus on diversity training in your leadership development program.

4. Fostering Collaboration & Culture

With the great resignation in full swing, retaining your employees and attracting new ones should be a key objective in 2022. While there may be shifts that need to be made from a policy perspective, it’s ultimately the people that make a company’s culture.

By focusing on developing your employees to create a better company culture, you’ll likely see many benefits such as greater engagement and improved productivity, among others.

Some organizations believe that a desired company culture will organically develop thanks to the values they’ve listed on their website. Really, it takes conscious effort to create a culture that keeps employees satisfied and appeals to new hires.

Prioritize a human-centered culture by developing how your employees:

• Give and receive feedback
• Cultivate humility
• Build empathy
• Establish trust
• Enhance psychological safety

5. Strengthening Cross-Functional Relationships

Developing successful cross-functional teams is more nuanced now that many companies are remote or embracing hybrid work.

The need to become a more effective cross-functional leader increases with an employee’s tenure. By developing the skills required for cross-functional performance you’ll be helping to broaden the talents of existing employees while making sure current leaders continue working as effectively as possible.

Help your employees strengthen their cross-functional relationships by:

• Focusing on what successful cross-functional teams have in common
• Setting clear goals and structures
• Joining goals with other teams to come up with an even better solution
• Practicing layering goals to identify the most effective solutions
• Leading by asking more and better questions
• Adapting useful strategies from other professionals
• Understanding how to maintain successful long-term collaborations

Get All of Your 2022 Leadership Development Topics with Verb

Having a successful year and putting your company in a prime position for the years ahead doesn’t have to be a challenge if you have the right leadership development strategy in place. Verb’s leadership development platform includes all of the content you need to upskill your employees into exceptional leaders.

With quick practice-based learning, your teams will be able to close the gap between knowing what to do and actually doing it.

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