Online Learning for Busy Leaders on the Front Lines

Frontline leaders are stretched thin. The average number of hours worked in a week continues to rise every year. Leaders are also experiencing more change at a faster rate than ever before, which usually means spending even more time on the clock, both in the office and at home. Squeezing in time for development is difficult, and organizations often skimp on investing in training for frontline managers, supervisors, and individual contributors at the lower leader levels.

Yet these first-level managers are typically an organization’s largest group of leaders, often almost 40% of the leadership population. In fact, fully 60% of frontline managers report they’ve never received any training for their first leadership role.

Investing in these leaders from the beginning is critically important to set them up for success and, by extension, pave the way for the success of your entire organization.

Our research has identified key skills that frontline managers need:

• Self-awareness,

• Learning agility,

• Communication,

• Political savvy,

• Influencing outcomes, and

• Motivating others.

We’ve found that leaders who are able to harness and develop these skills are more effective, less likely to derail, and more likely to advance to middle and even upper-management jobs. They are the foundation of your organization’s everyday operations and fill your leadership pipeline for the future.

Thanks to improvements in technology, learning leadership skills online has become a highly effective tool to help busy frontline leaders continue to develop their skills on their own schedule, without having to ever leave their office or home. Short online modules can even be integrated into a regular workday, without the worry of needing to schedule travel and arrange to be away from work, running the risk of missing important meetings or deadlines.

Learn Leadership Skills Online and Minimize Work Disruption

Time and resources are both precious commodities, for both organizations and leaders alike. The digital learning initiative can help leaders transform without the expense – or time – of travel. It can strengthen individual leaders, enhance the organizational culture, improve employee engagement and performance, and increase retention.

Plus, participants who experience extended learning over a course of time are able to easily apply new skills to their everyday routines – giving them the opportunity to witness firsthand how the information they’ve learned will benefit them personally. We ask participants to identify a specific leadership challenge they’re currently facing before the course begins, so that they can get “hands on” experience applying what they’re learning to their real-life challenges – and have a clear next step for moving forward after completing the course. Learning in this way not only makes the course more relevant for the participant, it ultimately improves sustainability and ROI for the organization.

Learning leadership skills online offers a win-win solution to the challenge of developing frontline managers. It’s cost-efficient and scalable for organizations, while being engaging, impactful, and relevant for leaders. It can be highly effective ways to help these leaders gain the critical leadership skills they need --without overtaxing their already-busy schedules.

Reflection Question: What were some of the most interesting discoveries you made while reading this blog article? About the problem? About yourself? About others?