Want actionable, useful information on how to build leadership training topics? We share all we know from our 20 years of experience. 

Leadership training isn’t anything new. 

But what we’ve seen historically when it comes to leadership training is a worn-out process that delivers results for nobody. 

It’s a checkbox exercise. 

A company rounds up its leadership team and sends them off to a leadership course. Those leaders come back unchanged but the business calls it a success. 

Why? 

Because the training was completed, or because measurable change was created? 

It certainly isn’t the latter. 

So to help, we’ve rounded up this blog where you’ll learn: 

• What it actually means to be a good leader 
• Key leadership training topics for your learning 
• Common pitfalls when setting up leadership training modules 

Let’s get started. 

What it means to be a good leader 

In business today, being a good leader can mean lots of different things, so we won’t try and define it too clearly. 

But some clear characteristics would include: 

• Being reliable 
• Taking feedback 
• Reflecting on what has and hasn’t worked 
• Working well within a team 

These are just the core ones, there are so many more. And role to role, team to team, and company to company, it’s all going to look differently. 

So how do you build good leadership training for your people? 

Well, the first question to ask is ‘how are you going to measure it?’

We should be trying to build leadership courses that allow you to measure good leaders. And we do this by looking at: 

• Business outcomes 
• Team progression 
• Productivity 
• Happiness and morale 
• Succession planning 

Key leadership training topics for your rising stars

Being a good leader is easier said than done. You can’t just walk into a senior leadership role. You need qualifications, experience, or evidenced skills. 

And the data illuminates an even bigger challenge. 

Around 77% of organisations report a leadership gap. The data found that only 10% of people are natural leaders, while 20% show leadership potential with proper training.

So there’s a huge gap there of potential leaders that you might be missing out on. 

But what does it actually take to be a good leader? 

Well, we have it down to the following, and so these should be key leadership training topics to build into your courses: 

Communication

Probably the most important characteristic in any effective leader is good communication. 

From being able to give feedback, to backing team members and communicating their needs up the line, a leader needs to be able to be: 

• Clear 
• Concise 
• Honest 
• Organised 

With these attributes in play, you can be assured that they will add value to meetings, teams and tasks.

Vision 

A good leader needs to have a vision, or a sense of direction. Where are they taking their team or project? 

From this vision comes a sense of motivation and enthusiasm which can then be used to inspire collaborators and team members. 

Problem-solving 

A good leader should be able to identify and deal with potential roadblocks, and that is something you can absolutely cover as part of leadership training. 

With this skill in play, your leaders can create an environment where problems become less stressful, and where creative ideas are listened to. 

Resilience 

When the going gets tough, which it will, it’s business after all, your leaders will need to stay positive and keep the momentum going. 

With key leadership training topics focusing on stress-relief, positivity and other resilience training, you can teach leaders to take the pressure off and deal with setbacks. 

Self-awareness 

Leaders aren’t just the ones giving feedback, they also need to be able to take it too. And do something with it. 

Having that sense of self is key in a good leader as it means they can respond to feedback and grow in their role. 

Agility 

In business, there always curveballs and so any good leader needs to be able to be agile. 

If a team member is off ill, or if budgets or targets change, a leader needs to be able to respond effectively to limit disruption and maintain success. 

Influence 

In our opinion, a good leader is one who can inspire others. Whether that’s direct reports, or others within our external to an organisation, it doesn’t matter.

Being able to influence others is extremely powerful, and a really valuable skill to have in your business. 

Courage 

As we mentioned in previous skills, a good leader needs to be able to be brave. Whether that’s making brave decisions around strategy, or delivering difficult news, courage is needed. 

Respect 

In everything that they do, leaders must have and show respect. For their team members, their peers, their senior leaders and more. 

While they may not agree with a decision, a comment, or a suggestion, they must be careful to not dampen any enthusiasm via dismissal. That and of course, a respectful leader is one that you therefore respect. 

Nobody wants to work for someone who can’t even give them a modicum of respect. 

Delegation 

Delegation is a simple task, but many effective leaders struggle with it. A good leader will be able to assign tasks that suit strengths, build accountability, get team members excited about the role, and progress careers. 

It’s a great way to build better teams and improve employee morale. But often you find leaders that take on the majority of the work as a way of controlling it. Leadership training in delegation therefore, is essential. 

Conflict management 

No business, or team for that matter, runs smoothly 24/7. There will be difficulties and disagreements but the trick is knowing how to deal with it, and frankly when to even intervene. 

This is a key leadership skill that should be included in your training. With the right conflict management training, you can teach leaders to get positive results out of disputes which is a win-win for everyone involved. 

Confidence 

Confidence is often considered part of someone’s personality, but it can absolutely be honed and grown. It’s essential as it allows leaders to make decisions that they, and their teams, will fully back. 

Of course, part of that will come from experience, but you can also teach people the method to becoming more confident so they can take that with them. 

What have you noticed about all the skills we listed? 

These are all soft skills. They’re not ones that you can learn easily on a course, which is what makes leadership training so difficult in the first place. 

Common pitfalls when setting up leadership training 

Even the most well-intentioned leadership programmes can miss the mark if they’re not set up correctly.

From unclear goals to overly generic content, small missteps early on can significantly reduce the impact of your training and the return on your investment.

Below, we break down some of the most common pitfalls organisations face when designing leadership training and, more importantly, how you can avoid them to create a programme that genuinely develops confident, capable leaders.

Lack of objectives 

As with any training, training without clear objectives will likely be useless. 

A clearly defined objective gives your program focus and direction, it outlines what the program aims to achieve and what the participants will get out of it. 

You need to make it measurable and specific so people know what they’ll gain from it, and how they can prove the impact of it. 

How to avoid this mistake: 

• Do a skills gap analysis 
• Speak to senior leaders on what they’re looking for from leaders 
• Communicate the objective both pre and during training 
• Define measurable outcomes for the training 

A one-size fits all approach

Everyone has different strengths and weaknesses, and everyone will be dealing with slightly different circumstances even if they work in the same company. 

As such, your training needs to be custom. 

Learn what problems your employees are facing, and create realistic opportunities for them to grow and develop. 

How to avoid this mistake: 

• Speak to your leaders and build variants of training to swap in and out e.g. conflict management 
• Offer different types of learning content to suit needs and preferences 

Talking at students 

Face-to-face learning has its place and eLearning isn’t the solution to everything. But we’ve found that our customers get most success from blended learning. 

That’s where you mix face-to-face and online learning together to give the best of both worlds. 

When it comes to leadership skills, you’re dealing with soft skills like communication. And this isn’t going to be something that you can teach via a seminar. 

How to avoid this mistake: 

• Try mentoring as part of your learning programmes 
• Use roleplaying – both face-to-face and online 
• Reinforce learning by asking learners to report back on real-life situations 

Related: Learning strategies you should try

Stopping the training after the classroom 

As with all courses, you can’t assume learning is done once students are out of the classroom. 

But with leadership being so heavily focussed on soft skills, this one needs even more post-classroom support. 

Leadership isn’t a skill you just obtain, it’s something you nurture, so make sure to use your learning platform to develop that post-course care. 

How to avoid this mistake: 

• Build a suite of learning that employees can dip in and out of 
• Reinforce learning with refresher courses 
• Make your training course last longer and include breaks to truly embed learning 

Building leadership training in your LMS

When it comes to leadership training topics, there are a whole host of soft skills you could integrate and call it a day. 

But to get leadership training right, you need to spend time understanding what’s needed, building it out into a wider network of content and supporting your learners on an ongoing basis. 

Doing that is impossible without the right tool in place. 

Here’s more on our platform and the features it has. And remember, we have our own Edition of Totara which means you get Totara, plus more. 

Learn more about how we can support you to create a new cohort of leaders by booking a demo.