Professional development is often seen as a goal reserved for individual contributors, fostered by support from their manager. But what if you’re a leader who’s interested in growing yourself?
Considering they spend most of their time overseeing direct reports and tackling high-level responsibilities, leaders can struggle to find time to prioritize their career development. That’s why Sloan Saunders, principal of population health operations at Evidation Health, blocks time on her calendar to engage with growth resources, such as online seminars.
“This takes discipline and time to get right, but it’s worth it,” Saunders said.
Saunders added that professional development offers benefits for both herself and her team as a whole. Whenever she learns something new, she makes an effort to share this knowledge with the rest of her peers.
While formal training sessions can certainly improve one’s management skills, they’re not the only way to become a better leader. Brigid Lenihan, senior tax manager at Leyton, feels as though she has the chance to grow simply by working alongside her colleagues, whom she considers to be “extremely talented, smart and hardworking.”
“I learn something new from them every day, both personally and professionally,” she said.
For Lenihan, Leyton’s strong focus on learning and development makes it easy for employees to develop new skills. In addition to structured internal training, she and others have the chance to grow by sharing their ideas with the wider organization.
“If someone believes Leyton could benefit significantly from a particular partnership, conference or individual accreditation, the company is extremely supportive and will do all it can to support these efforts,” Lenihan said.
Below, Saunders and Lenihan outline how they’ve found time to prioritize their professional development with the help of growth resources, inspirational peers and supportive cultures.
Evidation Health’s platform is designed to help people measure and improve their health. The software connects with consumers’ apps to track their daily health metrics in one place.
Between the demands of leading a team and executing on strategy, it can be difficult to find time to prioritize your own learning and development as a leader. How do you make sure you find the time to do so?
I do this in two ways: First, I always try to put myself in a position where I can learn something new, whether that involves finding opportunities to work on new projects to flex a new skill set, self-led learning or learning from my peers. Secondly, I dedicate intentional time on my calendar to spend on learning and development. Whether I’m taking part in a recorded seminar or reading up on the latest trends, I block off my calendar, turn off Slack notifications and use the allotted time as intended.
I always try to put myself in a position where I can learn something new.”
How does Evidation Health’s culture enable you to focus on your growth?
Evidation’s flexible work culture allows me to attend seminars and conferences during the workday when needed, especially if the content can be used in my day-to-day work. It’s also important to try to find ways to share my learnings with my team, such as through lunch-and-learns or summary recaps.
How does prioritizing your own L&D make you a better leader?
Growth is essential to effective leadership. For example, I recently started leading a new team dedicated to quality assurance and software validation. I was excited to learn more about the technical aspects of a validation lead while sharing my expertise in operational excellence with them. This approach of shared learning built empathy within the team while bringing forth different tools that enabled the team to solve problems.
Leyton aims to help organizations improve their financial performance without impacting their core businesses. The company’s software supports organizations with the implementation and optimization of multiple government tax credits and incentives.
Between the demands of leading a team and executing on strategy, it can be difficult to find time to prioritize your own learning and development as a leader. How do you make sure you find the time to do so?
It can be challenging to find time to prioritize learning and development. However, early on in my career, I realized you don’t always need to have formal sit-down training to develop your skills. I believe that every day is a learning opportunity. I’m very lucky to work with extremely talented, smart and hardworking colleagues. We have quite a diverse group of employees with a wide variety of cultural, educational and professional backgrounds.
Early on in my career, I realized you don’t always need to have formal sit-down training to develop your skills.”
How does Leyton’s culture enable you to focus on your growth?
Recently, our company has been putting a strong focus on learning and development in all areas. We have a fantastic internal team that’s rapidly building up a very extensive portfolio of trainings, whether that be related to soft skills, such as conducting performance reviews, or hard skills, which could include understanding how the research and development tax credit works.
How does prioritizing your own L&D make you a better leader?
There’s a very direct relationship between my development and the quality of my management skills, considering we have trainings and seminars specifically for coaching and leading, thanks to our fabulous L&D team. I always have plenty of ways to develop my skills as a leader within Leyton. I try to lead by example and put myself in my teammates’ shoes, asking myself, “What would I like to see in a leader?” I owe it to my team to do all I can to be the best manager I can be, and that means prioritizing my own growth.
