You know how much I like these people from previous posts on employee engagement (more of this later…) In their recent research piece “Exceeding Expectation: The principles of outstanding leadership” says a lot of interesting and, if I may say so, quite straighforward stuff about leadership being people-centred.

One relatively small element relates to development and where it should happen. The research is someone disparaging about training courses and urges organisations to “develop through performance”.

As a career trainer, folks have been somewhat surprised in my lack of faith in, well, training! My faith is in conversations and how they can develop the capacity of individuals and groups.

Well, there are some technical skills which will need training. You could get a dozen 18year olds together on an airstrip and let them work out how to work an airplane, but let’s face it – it would be risky….There are certan technical skills which require some detailed guidance, direct instruction and feedback. However this approach is overused in many other settings.

Exceeding Expectations asked them leaders get directly involved in leading conversation about performance in the workplace – not sent off to training – but asking the questions, sharing observations, encouraging innovation about the job, in the workplace.

The report also says that Leaders should recognise where things have gone well, even when there has been failure

Nice one

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