Failure to develop leaders is one of the most important reasons why businesses fail. Leaders are not only responsible for the management of their respective divisions but in addition seek to improve and develop their divisions as well. Through their vision they seek to grow their divisions and contribute to the overall growth of the business as well. Therefore, developing leaders is a surefire way to grow your business.

Concentrating your efforts on developing your leaders is essential to increasing long term success of your business. In practice however, it is hard to do as there are always a lot of other things pulling us in all different directions. However to ensure that your business does grow in the long term it is important to put into practice programs and processes that will encourage leadership development.

Have a well organised training scheme for different levels of employees. Engage Human Resources in selecting employees who may be appropriate for further training and upskilling. Take advantage of external organisations highly trained in leadership development and put your employees through these programs. They will not only assist in their leadership development but they can have a positive impact on their job satisfaction and productivity as well.

Develop a mentoring system in your organisation so that up and coming employees get to learn from more seasoned professionals. This gives a chance for the more experienced employees to impart their knowledge on to others. It also encourages the newer employees and helps them learn on what it takes to succeed in their current position.

Make sure delegation and special project processes are in place so that employees can learn how to delegate and others can take on new tasks, thereby increasing their confidence and skills and observing the delegation process. Delegation is an important part of becoming a leader. Special Projects are a great opportunity to learn from others and to start leading others. If you can have a good mix of employees this is a unique environment for an employee to apply all the leadership skills they have learnt so far and can start practicing their leadership skills.

Leadership Development is a process and must be supported by good systems to help you develop excellent leaders who can help your business grow and succeed.