For those who want to be better people

There is an intrinsic relationship between personal and professional development, and leadership. How invested are you in your development? And how invested is the company you work for in your development? How do you become a better person? Through ongoing learning, taking opportunities and applying the learning.

This famous quote by the legendary Henry Ford is definitely one to remember and it should apply to all businesses and teams, to get the best out of people.

I have worked for many an organisation that offer lots of different types of ongoing learning, including lunch n learns, structured professional development, tertiary study support and performance enhancing one-day or week courses, executive or otherwise. There may be various courses on a software platform such as go1 where people can pop in and conduct training courses in any area that is of interest to them whether or not it’s aligned to their current role. 

This also helps people to stand out as those who want to step up. Ask yourself:

• Does the company have a budget for personal development and leadership development? Am I capitalising on this?
• Are there career pathways for people’s desires to help make their experience awesome?
• Am I standing out by taking up opportunities offered?
• Do I put my hand up for offers that are made?

There are loads of resources available (online and hard copy) that can also help with your development and leadership. Anything by Simon Sinek is great – he has published a number of books and also posts regularly on LinkedIn. Or jump onto any recruiters’ website to see if they conduct regular blogging. Two I have come across recently are Tweak HR and What’s Your Edge? Anything by Korn Ferry is also great, and just this morning I’ve come across a site called Peak Indicators who also have a lot of useful articles to read.

I love reading and for the past five years I’ve always made a point of reading a book. I alternate between trashy fiction novel (think Harlan Coben, Lee Child, Marian Keyes) with non-fiction leadership book (think Napoleon Hill, Simon Sinek, Gary Layton) and the juice I get from these books is invaluable.

Stand out people need to offer outside-the-box thinking and the way to do this is to develop your tool belt as much as you possibly can. Do this through taking up courses and investing in your ongoing learning.