Workplace Simulations: A True Test of Skill

Conducting recruitment for a new staff person entails a lot more than simply placing an advertisement, collecting resumes and interviewing those who appear to offer the skills you are seeking. To be effective, the process must be systematic, transparent, non-discriminatory and accurate in the assessment of skills. In fact, assessing the accuracy of skills is often the hardest part of the entire process. This has led to the use of both work related simulations and intensive personal assessments.
Work related simulations have been used for decades to train flight and military personnel as well as medical specialists. So why not use simulations in an ordinary workplace? In actual fact, the use of simulations is indeed increasing. For instance, candidates at many manufacturing firms are first seated in front of a computer where they complete an interactive job simulation that mirrors what they would do in the real workplace. These simulations not only assess candidate ability in the technical areas but also assess problem solving, communication, or team orientation. If a candidate is successful with this initial assessment, they are invited back for additional evaluation. The value of these simulations is that it provides a more accurate concept of the job they are applying for and also helps the employer make the best choice.
Other "simulation" type assessments include role plays where participants are assigned certain roles in an intensive exercise and then evaluated on that experience. In addition, there are assessments that involve physical ability testing, or skills and ability tests that assess an individual's thinking, reasoning, and verbal or mathematical skills. Another popular assessment method is referred to as "in-basket" exercises which require participants to respond to real-life scenarios they would encounter in the new job. The assignments could include such things as making decisions, writing correspondences or preparing a presentation.
At the same time, there are many challenges to utilizing simulations or assessments. Some of these include the following:
Poor planning - it is very important to have the right people involved in determining the appropriateness of the simulation or assessment tools.
Poor job analysis - if the dimensions of a job are not well defined, then the simulation or assessment might well be assessing the wrong features of a job which in turn will lead to an inappropriate decision.
Inadequate exercises - poorly designed exercises both from a content and a timing perspective, will certainly put people through their paces but will not result in effective assessment. Exercises must closely resemble the job tasks and simulate realistic work conditions.
Poor candidate preparation - candidates need to be informed of what to expect in their simulation or assessment exercises. The purpose is not to surprise candidates or cause stress but rather to effectively assess their work related skills.
Poorly qualified assessors - if assessors are not properly trained and qualified, it might well result in poor documentation, scoring and a lack of objectivity. In addition, if the assessor is unfamiliar with the job tasks being assessed, it will result in inaccurate assessments.
Should simulations not be feasible in your organization due to time and costs, then the next best tool is the use of standardized, online personality, leadership and communication style assessments. These assessments help employers to examine basic characteristics such as attitude, emotional adjustment, interpersonal relationships, motivation, initiative, and follow-through. The assessments help to predict performance, demonstrates how a candidate's personality will impact their work and will highlight any "red flags" that suggest more followup is required. Ethics and integrity assessments are also now available.
As indicated earlier, assessing the accuracy of a candidate's skill and behaviours is often the hardest part of the entire recruitment process. This is especially difficult when selecting senior leaders. Therefore it makes good business sense to utilize multiple strategies and tools to ensure that you gain the most reliable picture of your potential new employee.

Paul Croteau, managing partner, is known as one of Manitoba's leading executive search professionals. His more than 25 years of experience in the recruitment of senior management and executive leadership professionals are the foundation to his solid reputation for developing a deep understanding of his clients' needs, enabling him to provide exceptional service and successfully meet the complex challenge of matching the right leader to his clients' business needs. Article Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Paul_H._Croteau

Are You Ready?

As the year 2009 begins its long journey, take time to look around your organization. Ask yourself, how many people in your workplace are eligible to retire? Where are these individuals placed within your organization? If you are in a small entrepreneurial firm, what does your owner intend to do in the next few years? Does their potential departure present any opportunities for you? If so, how do you get noticed as a candidate? Finally, what is the process for replacing these long term employees in your organization?
Developing a plan to replace senior executives is typically referred to as succession planning. It is a process whereby organizational leaders prepare potentially suitable employees through mentoring, job rotation, coaching and/or advanced training. The overall goal of succession planning is to ensure the organization doesn't face a leadership vacuum in senior positions if someone departs unexpectedly.
Hopefully organizations don't wait until someone suddenly dies or retires because of illness to start this planning process. From a career perspective, it is important that you ask around and determine what planning processes are in place, what you have to do to be perceived as a potential candidate and how you can get involved.
Keep in mind that succession plans are long term plans of anywhere from five to fifteen years. In other words, you need to be placed somewhere on the succession list as early as you can in your career. Don't wait...in fact, if you are interested in career progression, you should be planning well ahead of any potential need by the company.
First of all, evaluate the positions you are interested in and determine what experiential career path will take you there. Identify the skills that need to be developed and how this can be accomplished. Is there a combination of on-the-job skill development combined with external courses? Create a career development plan for yourself. Engage in ongoing training that will benefit the organization as well as yourself. In most cases, you'll be pleased to know that your organization will typically pay for this training.
Be certain to relay your career desires and professional interests in upcoming performance reviews and ask for support from your manager. If opportunities arise to participate in organizational or project reviews where you can not only gain skills but be involved in making improvements to systems, then take them. After all, you need to become a "known entity" within the organization as well as being viewed as a potential leader.
At the same time, continue to ask for and take on additional leadership responsibilities so that you are broadening your skillset. Leaders at the senior level are generalists not specialists. Therefore you need to develop more skills at the strategic level. In particular, focus on developing your financial management and strategic planning strengths.
Where possible, become part of your industry and/or professional organization. Take on leadership roles in these organizations as they will not only develop your skillsets but will create a strong network of relationships that can help your career overall. Your career motto should be, "every day, in every way, prepare for opportunities".
If done well, an organizational succession planning process will include an effective employee development program as well as an effective recruitment and selection process. In some cases, this means the organization will request the involvement of an external executive search consultant who will lead the project. There are a number of reasons why this might occur. First, the incumbent managers may feel they need external expertise in selecting the new senior leader as they haven't been engaged in interviewing and candidate selection for some time. If there is a board of directors, they may feel that independent objective judgment is required, especially if there is an internal candidate involved. Lastly, it is well known that executive search professionals are well connected in their communities and can present a number of candidates for consideration.
However, in some circumstances, internal candidates become personally offended when a company elects to conduct an external search process. On the other hand, keep in mind that internal candidates literally have the "inside track" because of their knowledge of the company. Furthermore, knowing that an internal candidate was successful in the selection process against significant competition helps not only bolster their own self esteem and self confidence but also increases their credibility within the organization and beyond.
Despite the fact that an internal candidate may have a significant advantage, individuals must still prepare as well as any other candidate. This means preparing a good resume that outlines the skills which are being brought to the job. It means reviewing accomplishments and selecting those that demonstrate readiness to take on additional leadership responsibilities. In addition, it is important that internal candidates prepare for the interview. Since more than likely the internal candidate has not been involved in an interview process for some time, it is important to prepare extra well. Be sure to practice responding to behavioral descriptive interviewing questions. As well, understand the executive search process. It takes time and is completed very carefully. For instance, at a senior level, the interviews typically include a telephone interview, a face to face interview and one or more team interviews by the owners or senior managers. Candidates are also required to complete one or more assessment tools which enable an evaluation of the candidate's ability to lead on several fronts.
The purpose of succession planning is to ensure the continuity of highly qualified staff in key roles while at the same time acting as a motivational tool for aspiring employees. Yet no matter whether your organization has a plan in place or not, never take anything related to your career for granted....adopt the Boy Scout motto, "Be Prepared!"

Paul Croteau, managing partner, is known as one of Manitoba's leading executive search professionals. His more than 25 years of experience in the recruitment of senior management and executive leadership professionals are the foundation to his solid reputation for developing a deep understanding of his clients' needs, enabling him to provide exceptional service and successfully meet the complex challenge of matching the right leader to his clients' business needs. Article Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Paul_H._Croteau

Recruiting in Tough Times

There are plenty of studies that show a key challenge for businesses going forward is the inability to attract and retain highly talented employees. At the same time, organizations are finally beginning to recognize the powerful impact that good talent management can provide not only in the good times but in difficult economic times as well. For some companies, a downturn means reduced hiring and staffing reductions and for other companies, this can be a great time to locate their next rising star.
At the same time, however, research shows that hiring continues even when the economy slows down. While certainly there may be shifts in the job market, there will indeed still be jobs. For instance, the financial services market is shrinking and many professionals are unemployed. However, the professional, technical and food service industry sectors are anticipated to grow because these industry sectors serve consumers critical needs such as health care, home and family health and energy. That's why there has been so much reference by American presidential candidates about "Joe the plumber". In other words, technical trades professionals are already in short supply and will become even more in demand during the economic downturn.
But recruitment and selection of new employees during a downturn economy requires a much more strategic hiring process. Companies must be able to quickly identify candidates and get them into the job as soon as possible so that any potential financial drain resulting from open positions or poor productivity is mitigated. Develop a target list of potential candidates that you can identify from your networking and industry contacts. Whereas we are now in a global world, companies are finding they must go further and further afield to find a qualified candidate. If you don't have national or global contacts then it is best to use the services of an executive search firm that can conduct research on your behalf. These professionals already have global contacts in every industry sector and can more quickly identify and screen candidates on your behalf.
Next, a company must ensure there is an effective process in place to manage the flow of applicants. It is anticipated that a much larger volume of resumes will be arriving on your desk and/or by email during an economic downturn. It is very time consuming and difficult to sift through all the resumes and find the right candidate. Therefore it is important to develop your selection criteria right up front and to assess the resumes against those criteria. For those with an automated recruitment platform, resumes arriving by email can be screened easily. No matter what, saving time at this stage of the recruitment process also saves money.
Create a more complex recruitment screening and interview process so that finalist candidates are screened through a number of steps. Making a mistake at any time is costly, let alone making a hiring mistake during a downturn. Use panels of managers and/or technical experts to participate in interviews. Consider having the candidates engage in a business simulation which would enable you to judge their skills in activities that parallel your company. Be sure to use an assessment tool that helps to judge the level of communication, teamwork and leadership skills required for success in your company.
Most senior executive appointments break down within the first eighteen months. In other words, candidates are always assessing whether or not the job is the right fit and if it isn't, they will leave. Therefore, it is important to build a strong employee orientation program for your new employee. The best approach is to engage these leaders in a results centred leadership program with an executive coach. Having a personal executive coach enables the individual to consult for confidential advice when needed. It also helps the new leader to strategically plan for building the new leadership team. This is especially important when one or two of the senior team members were also candidates for the senior leadership role.
Typically once the recruitment process is complete, companies retreat once again into themselves and focus on their corporate success. However, a good recruitment strategy is to continue to keep in touch with candidates who were part of the earlier recruitment process. Keep their resumes on file and personally stay in touch. You never know when additional opportunities may arise. This will also help you to stay in touch with industry trends and to more quickly access other network contacts when needed.
Having the right people, at the right time and doing the right things is key to success at any time and more so, in a down turn economy. Therefore, once your current recruitment project is complete, recognize that a downturn economy is also a good time to conduct a review or audit of your entire recruitment and selection process. Where can you create efficiencies? What can you do to make it more effective? Are you continuing to use outdated candidate search, resume assessment and interview methodologies? What needs to be changed? Engage in process improvement and get ready for the next economic upswing.

Paul Croteau, managing partner, is known as one of Manitoba's leading executive search professionals. His more than 25 years of experience in the recruitment of senior management and executive leadership professionals are the foundation to his solid reputation for developing a deep understanding of his clients' needs, enabling him to provide exceptional service and successfully meet the complex challenge of matching the right leader to his clients' business needs. Article Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Paul_H._Croteau

Best Hiring Practices: Minimize Mistakes

Three years ago a study of over three hundred companies showed that nearly 50 per cent of newly-hired employees failed within the first 18 months on the job. Yet interestingly enough, lack of technical skills were not to blame. In fact, it was interpersonal skills that were to blame for the new employees' lack of success. But what, specifically, is the problem?
According to Leadership IQ, a leading US human resource consulting firm, their study demonstrated that 26 per cent of new hires couldn't accept feedback, 23 per cent were unable to understand or manage emotions, 17 per cent lacked personal motivation and 15 per cent had the wrong temperament for the job. Only 11 per cent of new hires actually showed a lack of the necessary technical skills.
Development Dimensions, another US-based consulting firm, has also undertaken several studies on why executives fail in such a short time. They suggest that behaviours such as impulsivity, low tolerance for ambiguity, arrogance, micromanaging, self promoting, risk aversion or approval dependencies can quickly derail any senior leader.
Yet, can new-hire mistakes be avoided? In my view, yes, hiring mistakes can be avoided by following these simple tips:
Create accurate job specifications - some companies refuse to have job descriptions, thinking they will restrict what employees can do. A good job description is the basic requirement to creating accurate job specifications. You can't hire the right person for a task if you aren't sure what those tasks are or what skills and personal attributes are required. As well, be sure to include organizational culture attributes that are important.
Involve the right people - sometimes a job search is confidential but, in most cases, you need to consult with the managers who will be directly working with the new employee. Seek their input on the selection criteria and specifically focus on the interpersonal skills versus the technical skills.
Applying an appropriate search strategy - targeting and conducting your candidate search requires multiple avenues of advertising. Use a combination of newspaper, online job boards, social networking and employee referral processes so that you get the widest circulation of your message.
Match resumes to skills criteria - make yourself a checklist and compare each resume to this list. Determine whether an 80 per cent match would work and/or if you truly need a 100 per cent match of skills and abilities. Arrange to interview only those individuals who strongly meet your criteria.
Train your interviewers - most managers do not regularly conduct employment interviews on a regular basis and so their candidate search and interview skills are typically quite rusty if they did indeed have them at all. Interviewers need to be trained in interview skills and must develop questions that are directly related to the knowledge and skills required for the job. Ask for specific examples or problems, challenges and accomplishments. Know the questions that are deemed illegal and avoid them at all costs.
Prepare your candidates - share with your candidates as much information ahead of time as possible. Send them brochures, your strategic plan or any other document that will help them to assess your company and your job. The more prepared the candidates are, the better they will be able to respond to your questions.
Limit your talk - If you are doing all the talking, then you aren't learning enough about your candidate. Give as many details as possible but avoid the "run-at-the-mouth" syndrome. If you are doing all the talking, you are wasting time.
Create a multi-level assessment process - one interview will not do it. You need to create a multi-level process such as a plant tour, interviews with other employees or engagement in a business simulation that will help you to see the practical skills the individual offers.
Manage the time lines - there is nothing worse than taking too much time to conduct your search. If this happens, you will lose candidates... they don't want to wait, they want a new job. Prepare yourself for a process that takes approximately six-to-eight weeks. Anything longer than this will create unnecessary problems.
Conduct broad reference checks - involve people who will work with the new candidate. Ask for references from a boss, a peer and a subordinate to make sure you get a well-rounded response.
Plan for effective orientation - under any circumstances, it takes a new employee at least one year to become accustomed to a new job. At the same time, keep in mind that within the first 30 days, the individual will be making his/her mind up about whether the job was a good choice.
Hire an executive recruiter - last but not least, and in particular if you do not conduct a search process very often, consider hiring an executive recruiter. Not only are these professionals highly skilled in their work but they also have a broad network of candidates from which they can help locate an individual who will fit into your company.
Replacing an employee can cost up to three times their salary in both direct and indirect costs. This makes it all the more important that employers who conduct the search are skilled in carrying out this important corporate task.

Paul Croteau, managing partner, is known as one of Manitoba's leading executive search professionals. His more than 25 years of experience in the recruitment of senior management and executive leadership professionals are the foundation to his solid reputation for developing a deep understanding of his clients' needs, enabling him to provide exceptional service and successfully meet the complex challenge of matching the right leader to his clients' business needs. Article Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Paul_H._Croteau

Succession Planning 2009 (For Owners)

Time is raging on, years are passing by and things are feeling tougher and tougher - especially if you're a baby boomer who happens to be running a business. When you stop and look at where you are today, there are a lot to be proud of, yet there's a lingering sense of tiredness that seems to continually creep into your mind. Sure, you are used to working long hours and reaping the financial benefits of success. But at the same time, you've also spent many a day watching employees schedule their vacation while you, in turn, only stare at the number of non-existent holidays on your calendar. You can't even count the number of weekends spent working and/or pondering your next move.
Now as those New Year's resolutions come closer and closer, you've begun to think about a new and perhaps previously taboo goal, that of turning control of your company to someone else. For small business owners, especially leaders who have devoted their life to the growth of their firm, succession planning and selecting a new leader is one of the hardest challenges they have ever tackled. In fact, it has probably been put off for too long, but finally, the negativity and resistance must be overcome.
In fact, the succession and continuation of your business should be treated no differently than that of your personal life. Succession planning is simply the strategy of creating a will and testament for your business. After all, what will happen if you become ill or incapacitated or heaven forbid, what will happen if you meet your demise in a tragic accident? Do you want to leave a legacy of achievement and good will or a complex legal quagmire that hounds your struggling family, shocks employees and scatters your loyal customers?
Just as with your family, planning for the transition of your company is an important fiduciary responsibility. This is not as easy as simply finding a "clone" to replace you, implementing a last minute professional development plan for a star employee or begging a family member to leave their current work to take over the reins of your beloved company.
So, as the year 2008 draws to a close and you plan to use the Christmas holidays to confirm your succession goals and develop an action plan, recognize that it takes time and energy to identify the right person to take the helm of your business. Begin by taking the following steps:
1. Begin your planning now! Ensure the plans go beyond retirement but include also accident and/or illness.
2. Develop your company vision and long range plan and articulate the HR objectives required to achieve your plan; if you haven't involved your staff in strategic planning up to this date, now is the time.
3. Carefully identify the issues, the risks and vulnerabilities the company will face as you move toward succession challenges and examine steps you can take to overcome these;
4. Consult with a team of advisors to assess your financial, tax, legislative, human resource and organizational structure issues as part of your planning;
5. Determine what skills and abilities will be required to lead the organization toward your future dream. Take note of the fact that these skills may not be what you personally offer at the current time;
6. Examine if these skills already exist within your company, whether they need development, if there is time to develop the required skills and/or if an external candidate would be best suited to take the company forward.
7. Since employees will be concerned and perhaps threatened by the upcoming changes, plan to develop a retention strategy for employees at all levels; you can't afford to lose good people. Invest in them instead.
8. If external recruitment is the answer, be sure to develop a candidate profile inclusive of the character and integrity traits that will help them to fit into your team; avoid attempting to create a duplicate clone of yourself.
9. Work with an executive search professional who can bring objectivity to the overall process and decision making;
10. Talk to your management team and discuss why it is necessary to consider external candidates. Plan for in-depth discussions and debrief sessions for those internal candidates who will not be successful. Invest in these front line leaders; help to continue to contribute and to feel a sense of achievement with your firm.
11. Review the nature of your organizational culture and prepare for an intensive orientation process for at least three to six months.
12. Set goals with the new incumbent and then get out of the way. There is nothing more challenging than finding and hiring a successor and then interfering in their work.
13. Structure a change management strategy for yourself and your company; create a special event, perhaps a retirement party coupled with a new CEO launch to help signal the change and transition in your company.
14. Step down and step out of the way.
With the baby boomer crowd aging, the issue of succession planning will become an increasing threat for small business. While selecting and grooming a successor runs counter to common sense for many people, it is one of those "must do" tasks that can no longer be avoided.
Stay tuned for an upcoming article on Succession Planning for Employees and how you can prepare, even capitalize, for the challenge/opportunity.

Paul Croteau, managing partner, is known as one of Manitoba's leading executive search professionals. His more than 25 years of experience in the recruitment of senior management and executive leadership professionals are the foundation to his solid reputation for developing a deep understanding of his clients' needs, enabling him to provide exceptional service and successfully meet the complex challenge of matching the right leader to his clients' business needs. Article Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Paul_H._Croteau

Recruitment in Economic Downturns

While many business owners are so focused they don't take much time to keep track of national or regional economic factors, guaranteed, they have certainly been sitting up and paying attention to what's happened over the past year. With Manitoba being an exporter of goods and the Canadian dollar at par, our manufacturers are struggling. The ongoing US sub-prime mortgage issue is impacting some of our industries and the recent jump in gas prices has many of us running for cover.
The reaction to gas prices has been quick and deadly for the larger automobile and airline companies. It didn't take them long to engage in the necessary belt tightening and cost cutting tactics. So far, thousands of employees have been laid off. Hiring freezes are being implemented and budgets for new positions are being quietly dropped. Every business, no matter where they are located, is focusing on reducing operational expenses and trying to weather this newest survival challenge. Employees too, are hunkering down and working hard hoping that the layoff notice won't hit them.
A downturn in the economy is a good opportunity to engage in self assessment. Think about conducting an employee satisfaction survey, find out why employees like working for you. Use the positive traits in your marketing strategies, focus on attracting other like minded candidates to your organization. Use this time to repair any employee dissatisfiers, and especially work on maintaining employee security. Keep up open and honest communication and look at other opportunities such as cross training so that your employees are more flexible and can meet your needs going forward.
It is well known that employees leave organizations because of poor leadership style. So, to reduce your vulnerability from employee poaching by your competitors, and increase your competitive advantage, take this time to invest in leadership training. The most effective training is a program that is offered over a six month time frame where participants can implement what they learn following every training module. Focus on a program that offers self awareness, an understanding of how the leader builds teams and impacts on overall organizational success. Ensure the program also offers individual coaching over this timeframe.
At the same time, this stage of an economy provides a great opportunity to thoroughly examine your business vision and goals. Where are you going...what is your vision? What opportunities will let you gain competitive advantage? What are your barriers and obstacles? What leadership skills and competencies are needed to go forward? Where do you find them? How do you attract them? What do you have to offer versus your competitors?
While a downturn economy sounds like a very constrictive and unforgiving environment, believe it or not, conducting an executive search for good personnel during times like this can prove very valuable. Keep in mind that ensuring your organization has highly productive and well performing employees is critical to ongoing success. In fact, it is to your advantage to search out candidates who may want to leave a struggling firm to join your organization. In other words, a downturn in the economy can allow you to make very strategic moves from a recruitment point of view.
The best approach to executive search in a downturn environment is to utilize the services of a well respected executive search firm with extensive research capabilities. Remember, employees will hunker down during this time. Many of the highly qualified candidates will not be looking and when contacted, may be hard to convince that a move is worth their while. It takes skill and persistence to make this happen along with a multiple selection of various advertising and networking strategies.
What is a research approach to executive search all about? A research approach requires dedicated personnel who spend their time researching various organizations and mining the data from websites, newspaper advertisements and business articles to compile a list of contacts. These contacts work in your industry, are known leaders and are successful in their professions, but typically, they are happy in their current job. A research approach is essentially a social networking approach to finding potential candidates.
Contact is made with each individual, the opportunity is presented and if personally interested, documentation on the opportunity will be forwarded. If there is no interest, the search professional asks for a referral. Hundreds and hundreds of candidates are contacted, locally, regionally, nationally and even internationally. Resumes are received and stored in electronic databanks for future use.
An economic downturn is a difficult test for business and requires a leader's undivided attention. So, while you are busy fighting fires, your search professional is busy identifying candidates who fit your organizational profile. This is the kind of teamwork needed to help your organization acquire the high performing employees who will drive your vision forward.

Paul Croteau, managing partner, is known as one of Manitoba's leading executive search professionals. His more than 25 years of experience in the recruitment of senior management and executive leadership professionals are the foundation to his solid reputation for developing a deep understanding of his clients' needs, enabling him to provide exceptional service and successfully meet the complex challenge of matching the right leader to his clients' business needs. Article Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Paul_H._Croteau

Developing Leaders in the New Economy

While company leaders are fully aware that insufficient leadership talent was predicted to impact on their corporate performance, many feel they are not very good at dealing with the issue. There are just so many complexities in the business world today that companies are struggling to juggle their time and energies. And now with the downturn in the economy, many leaders are facing survival issues rather than market growth issues. Many are being forced to drastically cut costs and downsize their head count. Still others are forced to entertain a potential merger or an outright sale. Some are simply adapting a "steady-as-you-go" mentality.
To say the least, our leaders are facing a much more demanding world with a much wider range of challenges. So, in times of volatility and crisis, organizational leaders will be tested time and time again. There will be many leaders who'll feel caught up by the daily crises involving extraordinary hurdles that may cause scrambling knee-jerk responses. And to make matters worse, the business cycle as we know it has disappeared, the economy is venturing into uncharted territories and advisors themselves don't know what to do. The issue then leads to two key questions; what type of skill is required by our leaders as we move between the old and new worlds of finance and how can these be developed?
Effective problem solving and decision making - leaders cannot panic under duress but rather they need to be good problem solvers who can recognize problems without being intimidated. Then they need to analyze the problems from all possible angles and examine a variety of solutions. Once a solution is determined, they need to make tough decisions quickly and ensure that a backup plan is in place.
Strategic leadership and risk management - leaders must know their industry sector well so that they can quickly identify the risks and opportunities their company is facing. This requires effective strategic planning skills. They also need to protect their organizations from any unforeseen risk including market risk, credit, operational and business volume risk.
Effective management of change - effective leaders know how to present a sense of urgency for change and they know how to create a vision for change and motivate others to accept the change. They are skilled at keeping the momentum and institutionalizing the change.
Model performance - it is difficult to keep people motivated during volatile times. Effective leaders need to act as a role model and apply a dynamic approach that involves employees in process improvement and innovation. Everyone needs to be focused on improving corporate performance.
Soft skills will make all the difference - according to research compiled by the Centre for Creative Leadership, more organizations are facing extremely stressful times and more of the "soft" leadership skills are needed to create success. This includes proactive, open communication, good listening and teamwork.
What are the steps an organization can take to develop these leadership skills? The following elements can be your guide.
* View training as an investment - typically during volatile times, the training budget is the first to be cut. This is a mistake. Look at training as an investment and not an expense.
* Develop a leadership profile - brainstorm and determine the nature of the leadership skills required for success. Develop a profile and then utilize leadership and communication style assessment tools to understand the skills you currently have in your organization.
* Design a focused in-house leadership program - that is in tune with your strategic goals. Ensure the program focuses on the SMART goal approach, leadership accountability, employee motivation, communication and teamwork.
* Apply measured application - ensure your training program employs a measured delivery over a period of time such as six months. This aides participants to begin applying their learning back to the workplace as soon as they can. It also enables leaders to set goals that are appropriate for the workplace and helps them change their behaviour slowly over a period of time.
* Assign a mentor - participants learn best from experience. Assign a mentor where possible so that people have access to institutional knowledge and advice. Bring participants and mentors together for informal sharing sessions, let them learn from each other.
* Create learning assignments - coursework is not the only way to learn. In fact, practical "school of hard knocks" accompanied by academics can be a powerful combination. Look around your organization and find developmental or stretch assignments for your developing leaders.
We live in a volatile and change-oriented business environment. Companies who successfully weather these turbulent times require leaders who are role models and can apply a disciplined approach to effective problem solving and decision making. These skills are not innate but must be taught and honed to perfection through intensive leadership training programs.

Paul Croteau, managing partner, is known as one of Manitoba's leading executive search professionals. His more than 25 years of experience in the recruitment of senior management and executive leadership professionals are the foundation to his solid reputation for developing a deep understanding of his clients' needs, enabling him to provide exceptional service and successfully meet the complex challenge of matching the right leader to his clients' business needs. Article Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Paul_H._Croteau