The Most Difficult Leadership Talent Challenges and How You Can Solve Them

With the proper training and mentorship, companies can nurture leadership talent, allowing managers to embrace challenges and meet their full potential. This article will explore the most challenging leadership talent challenges and how to solve them. It will also highlight how businesses can overcome weaknesses and maximise strengths with relevant leadership training. 

Leadership Talent 

Unlike the average manager, true leaders inject confidence, motivation and insight into their role and business culture. In addition, leaders should demonstrate effective communication, delegation skills, approachability, and a growth mindset. However, sometimes leadership talent is just shy of maximising these skills due to problems with x, y, or z. Whether you’re actively looking to train your management team or are hoping to prevent future hiccups, these are some of the best tactics for solving leadership talent challenges.

The most challenging leadership talent challenges 

Team Management 

Organising teams can prove challenging for leaders. Too much involvement (also known as micro-managing) can stifle employees, hindering productivity and damaging company rapport. Conversely, too little can leave staff unsure of their role or purpose, leading to a drop in engagement and even the departure of star staff. 

Solutions: 

Delegate 

Building trust in a collaborative culture is down to solid task delegation. Leaders should allocate duties fairly and practically to maximise both resources and productivity.  

Encourage Talent and Employee Development 

Managers ought to actively seek out the potential of team members and encourage their growth. In addition, leaders should understand the future aims of employees and provide opportunities that challenge and strengthen their skills to ensure long term employee commitment.

Effective Communication 

Keeping everyone in the loop can be tricky, especially in fast-paced organisations. With this in mind, it’s essential to streamline interpersonal communication to keep everyone up to date. For example, on top of email updates, leaders should schedule regular meetings to guarantee everyone is receiving (and understanding) important information.

Negotiation 

In an ideal world, teams would always get on, and everything would go according to plan. However, in the real world, conflicts do arise, often causing ripples throughout the organisation. 

Leaders need to know how to negotiate with colleagues and provide guidance to remedy any conflicts. The art of negotiation is also essential concerning liaising with clients, particularly regarding issues surrounding client expectations or deliverables. 

Solutions: 

Act Quickly 

If problems are left unattended, they can fester and impact productivity levels and company morale. Rather than sweeping conflicts under the carpet, managers should step in before working relationships are affected. 

Highlight Company Values 

Leaders should, unsurprisingly, lead by example and make sure their management methods align with company values. In addition, they should demonstrate and actively promote trust, respect, compassion, and optimism to inspire productivity among the team and, hopefully, avoid any personality-based clashes. 

Listen Before Acting 

Solving negotiation issues often comes down to actively and openly listening to those involved in decision-making, strategy, or a conflict. First, leaders should fully understand the situation before making any decisions or changes. Then, with accurate knowledge, they can lead a frank discussion.

Confronting Performance Issues 

Among the most challenging leadership talent challenges is confronting performance issues. Whether teething pains or a strategic hiccup, performance issues are part and parcel of growing a business. However, too many could thwart growth and allow competitors to swoop in and win over clients. 

Solutions: 

Have Clear Goals In Place

Leaders should ensure that staff understand personal and collective objectives. If this isn’t clear, performance could fall short of what is required. Outlining individual and company expectations from the get-go, with realistic (though ambitious) targets in tow, will not only motivate but help guide employee time management and task delegation. 

Continually Monitor Performance 

Using data analysis and behavioural observation, managers demonstrate leadership talent when they consistently and practically monitor staff and sales performance – which are generally not mutually exclusive. 

Give Regular Feedback 

Using the above data and observational findings, leaders should give regular feedback to employees. Then, having provided clear goals and collated data, leaders can directly and constructively confront any problems by comparing expectations to actual performance.

Hires and Dismissals 

Hiring and dismissing employees is probably one of the leaders' most challenging tasks. A wrong hiring decision can negatively impact team morale and performance. Likewise, dismissing employees shouldn’t be taken lightly either.

Solutions: 

Seek Out HR Support 

When it comes to dismissals, your HR department should support and guide on letting staff go. HR teams can ensure leaders not only follow the right processes and policies but avoid any negative repercussions.

Strengthen Your Hiring Process 

Don’t hire on a hunch – create a solid hiring process that sends candidates through assessments and interviews. This will provide managers with as much insight as possible into their suitability for the role and helps to ensure long term compatibility. 

Involve Staff Members 

Involving the team in the hiring process can provide a second, third, or fourth opinion and ensure that new hires fit in with the collective (avoiding personality clashes in the future). 

Not sure how to attract top talent to your company? Consider using an executive search firm like Pareto. Our talented recruitment specialists know the industry inside and out and can connect you with unrivalled talent.

Bridging Skill Gaps 

Workplaces are constantly changing to keep up with digital innovation and transformation. With this in mind, the skills that you want to recruit will change and the requirements of current staff. If skill gaps are left to enlarge, your team and company could lose their competitive edge.

Solutions: 

Provide Training 

Managers need to make it easy for staff to access training and self-development tools to keep team knowledge evolving. Regularly refreshing skillsets ensure that they are ready to face future challenges and meet the demands of technological and digital advancements. 

Celebrate Wins

Leaders should celebrate company and individual victories to promote a collective growth mindset. Celebrating wins is also a great way to increase staff retention as employees can see that their progression is appreciated and invested in.

Provide Inspiration

Leaders can inspire colleagues by assuring them that their work is valued. For example, in meetings, leaders need to make sure that everyone is clear on how their contribution to the company plays a vital role in its success. Without them, the vision would be incomplete.

Leadership Talent Training 

Only 33% of leaders feel confident making business decisions, yet companies need leadership at all levels. Learning how to assess and train your leadership team may seem time-consuming, but there is always room for improvement – especially when it comes to the success and stability of those who are guiding your business. 

Investing in Leadership Talent Training can improve productivity and growth prospects and enable teams to approach challenges as possibilities for success rather than setbacks. Learn more about sharpening leadership talent here.