Leadership development is most effective when it starts with a clear understanding of the skills a business needs, both now and in the future.

A skills gap analysis helps organisations compare current capability with the knowledge, skills, behaviours and confidence their people will need to achieve future business objectives. Used effectively, it can inform leadership development, succession planning, talent development and wider organisational strategy.

But there is an important distinction.

A skills gap analysis shouldn’t simply tell you what people can’t do. It should show you what your business needs them to be able to do next.

That was the focus of our recent Jarrold Training webinar, The leadership pathway that pays for itself: how organisations can move away from reactive training and build leadership and management development that creates measurable value.

Why does leadership development matter to business performance?

When budgets are under pressure, training can be one of the easier things to pause. Unless development is mandatory or compliance-led, it can quickly become something to “pick back up next year”.

But leadership capability affects far more than the individual manager.

Gaps in leadership and management skills can show up through:

• high staff turnover and poor retention
• slow or ineffective decision-making
• inconsistent standards
• avoided performance conversations
• reduced customer service
• poor communication and engagement
• managers continually firefighting
• senior leaders remaining too involved in operational detail
• limited succession planning and knowledge transfer

So when considering the cost of leadership training, there is another question worth asking:

What is the capability gap costing the business already?

What is a skills gap analysis?

A skills gap analysis identifies the difference between the capabilities an individual, team or organisation currently has and the capabilities it needs.

A good skills gap analysis considers more than someone’s ability to perform their current role. It should also consider future business objectives, changing responsibilities, succession planning, emerging talent and the capabilities an organisation may need over the next 12, 24 or 36 months.

In simple terms, it asks three questions:

What can our people do now?

What will we need them to be able to do?

What development will help close that gap?

That final question is important because the answer isn’t always a training course.

Start with the business need, not the training course

One of the easiest traps in learning and development is starting with the available training.

A communication course looks useful, a leadership programme has spaces available, there is some budget left to spend. Perhaps a team is experiencing a problem, so we find a course that might fix it.

There can absolutely be value in standalone training and CPD. But strategic leadership development starts further upstream.

Before asking “What training do our people need?”, ask:

What are we trying to achieve as a business?

Then consider what managers and leaders will need to do differently to achieve it.

Where are you overly reliant on one or two people? What problems are repeatedly escalated? What capability will you need in the future? Where could valuable organisational knowledge disappear if someone leaves or retires?

From there, the process becomes:

This helps organisations invest in development for a reason rather than training for training’s sake.

How do you identify the real skills gap?

Not every performance problem is caused by a lack of knowledge.

Imagine a manager who has attended conflict management training. They understand the model, can explain the process and have demonstrated that they know how to use it.

Three months later, they are still avoiding a performance conversation with a member of their team.

Is that really a knowledge gap?

Perhaps not.

They might lack confidence. They may fear damaging the relationship. Expectations may be unclear. They might not have sufficient support from their own manager. There could even be a process or cultural barrier preventing them from applying what they know.

When assessing leadership capability, we find it useful to consider four areas:

• Knowledge- Do they understand what is expected and what good performance looks like?
• Skill- Can they actually do it?
• Confidence- Do they feel able to use the skill when it matters?
• Behaviour and application- Are they consistently applying it in the workplace?

Understanding where the gap actually sits makes it much easier to choose the right development.

Sometimes that will be formal leadership or management training. Sometimes it could be coaching, mentoring, clearer expectations, greater accountability, opportunities to practise, changes to processes or better support from a manager.

Effective leadership development starts with diagnosis, not assumption.

How does a skills gap analysis support succession planning?

One of the most useful questions an organisation can ask is:

If a key person left tomorrow, who could step up?

For many businesses, that question exposes a much wider organisational risk.

Experienced people retire. Managers move on. One individual becomes the only person who understands a critical process. Technically capable employees are promoted into management without having had the opportunity to develop the people skills their new role requires.

Succession planning shouldn’t begin when the vacancy appears.

Identifying future skills requirements allows organisations to develop people before those capabilities become urgent.

And that doesn’t mean promising somebody a promotion.

Creating a visible talent development pathway gives people opportunities to develop their leadership skills, broaden their experience and prepare for future opportunities, even when a particular role isn’t immediately available.

The aim is to build organisational capability before you need it.

What are the benefits of a leadership development pathway?

A leadership development pathway creates a structured approach to building capability at different career stages.

Rather than treating leadership training as a collection of unrelated courses, a pathway connects development to increasing levels of responsibility, capability and business need.

Depending on the organisation, this could include:

• essential leadership skills for new and aspiring managers
• supervisory and team leader development
• communication and psychometric tools such as Insights Discovery®
• ILM Level 3 leadership and management development
• coaching and mentoring skills
• ILM Level 5 leadership and management development
• project management and business improvement
• health, safety and environmental responsibilities
• strategic leadership and organisational change

Not everybody needs exactly the same pathway.

Two people can have the same job title but very different levels of experience, confidence and capability. The most effective development therefore combines organisational consistency with enough flexibility to address individual needs.

Can leadership training deliver measurable ROI?

Leadership development can create measurable business value when learning is connected directly to workplace challenges and opportunities.

On our ILM Level 3 Forefront Leadership and Management programme, delegates undertake a real workplace project rather than working only with hypothetical scenarios.

One recent delegate identified a project with the potential to save their organisation approximately £20,000 every month.

Another developed a prototype machinery part which, subject to successful testing, could have commercial value beyond their own organisation.

These are examples of why the return on leadership development shouldn’t be measured solely by attendance or the qualification somebody receives.

The return can also be seen through better decisions, greater ownership, improved processes, stronger problem-solving and tangible business improvements.

Leadership development can therefore become something that contributes to business performance rather than simply appearing as a cost on the training budget.

What does leadership development look like at Level 5?

As managers become more senior, the required capability changes.

Development increasingly becomes about moving away from day-to-day operational thinking and developing the ability to lead strategically.

For one newly appointed Managing Director we worked with, this meant recognising how much operational work they were personally carrying.

Through Level 5 development, they created a clearer strategic direction for themselves and their team and began stepping away from tasks that could be owned elsewhere.

The result was not simply personal development.

It allowed a senior leader to focus more of their time and energy where the business needed it most, while reducing the risk of becoming overwhelmed by operational firefighting.

At this level, leadership development may encompass strategic thinking, culture, change management, psychological safety, organisational performance and the ability to translate vision and values into everyday leadership.

How can organisations make leadership development more effective?

The starting point is not sending more people on more courses.

It is creating a clear connection between business strategy, people capability and development.

Ask:

Where is the organisation going?

What will our people need to be able to do when we get there?

Where are the gaps between that future and where we are today?

What intervention will genuinely close those gaps?

How will we know that something has changed?

Answering those questions creates a much stronger foundation for leadership and management development.

Because ultimately, the objective isn’t training.

The objective is building the capability your organisation needs to perform, adapt and grow.

In our webinar, The leadership pathway that pays for itself, I explore these ideas in more detail, including skills gap analysis, succession and talent pipelines, different levels of leadership development and how organisations can connect investment in people with wider business outcomes.

Watch the Leadership Webinar

 

Identify your leadership and management skills gaps

If you’re unsure where to begin, Jarrold Training has created a Leadership and Management Skills Gap Analysis to help identify potential development priorities.

The assessment can be completed by an individual alongside their manager, allowing different perspectives to be compared rather than relying solely on self-assessment.

Our team then reviews the results and provides personalised recommendations to help you consider appropriate next steps.

Complete Skills Gap Analysis

 

Bryony Moore
Bryony is a Leadership and Management Trainer, Consultant and Coach at Jarrold Training, specialising in leadership development, coaching, workplace culture and Insights Discovery®. She works with organisations to develop people and teams through practical learning and consultancy that supports both individual and business performance.