Nonprofit Leadership Training Your Whole Staff Can Benefit From
We’ve all heard the old adage that “leadership can’t be taught.” It’s not difficult to understand why people often feel this way.
Being a good leader is nuanced and complicated, and involves mastery of both technical and human-centric skills. Leaders also need to apply their broad range of skills to an equally wide range of duties, especially at nonprofit organizations, and lead with a flexibility, optimism, and a knack for creative problem-solving.
While it's true that many leadership skills can be mastered through job experience and time, leadership-focused learning and development opportunities can help nonprofit organizations identify and foster budding leaders within their own teams.
Implementing a skill-based leadership development program can help your nonprofit build a strong pipeline from within. Since many critical leadership skills are also rising in prominence in the age of AI, centering your professional development efforts around developing leadership skills can help your workforce become more effective, whether your employees decide to pursue formal leadership positions or not.
What is skills-based nonprofit leadership training?
Much like a skills-based approach to hiring, which involves focusing on candidates’ transferable skills rather than their experience or education, a skills-based approach to leadership training can help organizations build strong leaders from within their organization.
This process can start from the moment a role is open, by hiring applicants with leadership skills or the potential to learn them, in the hopes that training and development will help them progress within an organization internally. Then, by focusing on leadership skill development during the hiring, on-boarding and on-going employee development processes, you can provide your talent with a structured approach to their learning.
By helping individuals build leadership capabilities, skills-based training (versus solely role-based operational training) prepares them for future growth and better positions them as a promising internal candidate for any leadership roles that open at your organization.
Why you should invest in nonprofit leadership training for all of your employees
Many of the skills that characterize effective leadership are also highly in demand. Great leaders communicate clearly, set an example for serving customers, guide projects adeptly, and know how to manage people. These in-demand skills are not only critical for leadership development, but they’re valuable for progressing toward almost any professional growth goal.
Extending learning resources to everyone on your team is a powerful way to show that you’re invested in helping them achieve their career goals. Building a “culture of learning” at your nonprofit is one of the most effective ways to increase employee happiness, engagement, and retention.
When you can show your team members you care about helping them learn and grow, they’ll enthusiastically take you up on the opportunities you offer — and become more valuable employees in the process. It’s a win-win.
Incorporating leadership training opportunities to benefit your whole team
Adding skill-based learning into your existing training programs doesn’t have to be complicated. LinkedIn Learning can help your organization achieve this.
Start by consciously building time into your employee’s training schedule to study new leadership skills. For example, you could split their training sessions between traditional, role-based training and skills-based learning, focusing on leadership skills. Next, have your managers work with their direct reports to create customized learning paths for each employee. This will allow them to focus on developing the leadership skills they’re most interested in, helping them see the connection to their goals and stay engaged.
From there, have your employees spend time exploring courses based on the leadership skills they want to learn as part of your professional development program. For best results, have these employees’ managers meet with them to discuss their learning progress regularly, the way you would with conventional training. When multiple employees want to learn the same skill, you could also have them take the courses together or even schedule meetings to have these employees discuss their learnings as a study group.
The leadership skills to focus on in employee training depend on what your organization needs and what they are interested in learning. Here are a few good places to start:
- Communication
• Communication Foundations
• Preparing for Successful Communication
• Mindful Communication for Less Conflict and Stronger Relationships
- Customer service
• Customer Service Foundations
• Customer Service: Managing Customer Expectations
• The Service Mindset: Enhancing Your Customer-Centric Skills
- Leadership
• Leadership Foundations
• Improving Your Leadership Communications
• Leading with Innovation in the Age of AI
- Project management
• Project Management Foundations
• Project Management Simplified
• Find Your Project Management Style
- Management
• Nonprofit Management Foundations
• Essential Lessons for First-Time Managers
• Making the Move from Individual Contributor to Manager
You don’t need to give up your current system for training future leaders to benefit from skills-based learning. Instead, simply incorporate customized learning paths into each of your employees’ existing training programs, so they can start developing leadership skills at the same time as you prepare them for their next role. Even if your employees never advance to become leaders in your organization, they’ll be able to apply the skills you teach them toward becoming more effective at whatever they do.
Learn more about how LinkedIn Learning can help facilitate skills-based leadership learning across your organization here.
