Whether you want to create a new leadership development program or expand your current program, one thing is certain: you’ll need resources.
Headcount. Budget. Time. And—perhaps most importantly—a clear signal from the organization’s leadership that learning and development is a priority in your organization.
What do all these factors have in common? They require getting stakeholders on board across the business, from the corner office on down.
In many organizations, this isn’t easy. Most leaders see the value of learning, but this investment can get lost in a sea of other priorities. Balancing the C-suite’s desire for immediate results (and the metrics to back them up) with a more long-term vision of cultivating effective leaders can often feel like a juggling act.
And demonstrating the return on investment for these initiatives requires both data and compelling narratives that resonate with decision-makers.
With persistence and a strategic mindset, though, you can pave the way for meaningful change within your organization. Here are a few ideas that can help you get there.
Get Leadership on Board with L&D Investment: Key Strategies
- Understand priorities. What are the most important business goals and areas of focus? Where is your organization succeeding? Where are the gaps? Cultivate relationships with owners or leaders in finance, business strategy, or product/P&L. This will help you get a pulse for the business and what they are aiming to do differently. The more deeply you understand leadership’s current priorities, the better you’ll be able to align your learning strategy to these crucial areas—and the easier it will be for you to make your case.
- Speak leadership’s language. Every area of the business has its own terminology. L&D is no different. But remember: Your pitch for leadership development needs to translate across the business. References to complex frameworks and metrics like learning engagement may work for an L&D audience. But when speaking to decision makers in other functions, be sure to speak to topline goals like revenue, customer satisfaction, or NPS, or address how you’ll mitigate mission-critical issues like employee retention.
- Craft a narrative. Look for the numbers, anecdotes, and learner testimonials that demonstrate why leadership development is important. Find one or two examples of learners or their managers who can share a concrete challenge they faced and how leadership programming influenced the way they tackled it. (The more specific, the better!) Spin these statistics and anecdotes into a wider story that showcases your program’s impact or potential for impact. Make sure this story has a beginning, middle, and end, and that it clearly highlights how learning helped to spur a change along the way.
- Find your champions. Who can help make a case for your program? Build a network of champions that includes leaders outside L&D, your most enthusiastic learners, and managers who can speak to how learning has made a difference for their teams. This group will advocate for learning in their spheres of influence. This will help both with pushing for resources now and when you’re looking to drive learner engagement down the line.
- Frame learning as a tool for transformation. Organizations often thrive—or struggle—based on how they’re able to navigate transformation. Whether your company is in the midst of adopting new digital tools or a new organizational structure, learning can play a key role in ensuring this transformation is successful. Making this clear can help leaders understand how the program will help with the changes that just might be keeping them up at night.
- Get granular. How specific can you get when it comes to the target skills and key outcomes of your leadership program? Rather than speaking in generalities, show exactly what your learning program is meant to do. Who are you helping? Why will it matter? Make sure you’re really speaking to the tangible results this program will support. (L&D consultant Kevin Yates calls this “fulfillment of purpose” and has some good thoughts on how to develop it.)
- Own your expertise. You’re the learning expert. Don’t be afraid to own it! Tout your knowledge and the unique perspective you bring to this work. In some cases, this may include giving hard answers. For example, while certain senior leaders may expect instant ROI, it’s part of your job to explain that learning is a long-term process. Underscore that you’re impact-oriented, but let them know that learning may have a different time horizon than other business initiatives.
Conclusion: Getting Stakeholders on Board
Getting buy-in for your leadership development is a little bit of a science and a little bit of an art. You need to be able to speak to the data and show that you’re working toward concrete results. But you also need to excel at the art of persuasion, building a network of influential champions and crafting a story that appeals to decision makers’ emotions, too.
The best advice we can give is to approach this work with a combination of confidence, humility, and above all, curiosity. The more you understand the mindset and the priorities of the leaders you’re appealing to, the more effective you’ll be as an advocate for your program.
And—ultimately—the more effective you’ll be as an advocate for your learners, too.
For a more comprehensive view of building great leadership development programs, download your copy of our practice-forward guide for building world-class leadership development experiences (no matter the size of your L&D team!).
Interested to learn more about bringing Next Shift Learning’s Emerging Leaders Program to your organization? Get in touch here. We’d love to hear from you!
