There are hundreds of inspiring quotes—“Leaders aren’t born, they are made” (Vince Lombardi, among others), and books and blog postings about developing your leadership skills. They offer useful advice and thought provoking ideas for leaders to consider. This food for thought is useful but only goes so far.
Leadership has to go from your head (what should I do?), to your heart (why should I do it?), to your words and actions (what people see). Leadership is an interactive dynamic—requiring you to think on your feet, react in the moment, and work with and through people. The only way to cultivate your leadership is to practice. Ultimately the best way to build leadership skills is through experience—through trial and feedback and failure and success.
Business simulations offer a unique, efficient way to gain leadership experience. We often think of business simulations as providing business acumen insights and strategic business analysis practice—and simulations achieve those objectives really well. The greater value, though, is in letting you practice your leadership. A business simulation—particularly one where you participate in a group and have to address both human and financial dynamics—can help you accelerate the development of your leadership muscle in five distinct ways:
1) You can practice making decisions that you might face on the job. What information did you gather? Who did you talk to and how did you gather the information? How did you consider that decision in the broader context of the business that you are leading?
2) You can practice explaining those decisions to others. Leadership is about engaging and bringing others with you—whether they are peers, employees, bosses or customers. A leadership simulation experience forces you to explain your decisions to your teammates or in presentation exercises to your “employees”. If you do a bad job, there’s no real world impact except that you’ll learn a lot about what to do differently back on the job.
3) You can practice moving to agreement in a short period of time with a diverse group. In a business simulation, you can only enter one set of decisions—your team’s. You have to work through disagreements and align on your choices; and then live with the results.
4) You can see your leadership impact on your organization over time. The impact of leadership can be both immediate and have a very long lead time. A simulation that telescopes months into minutes and years into hours lets you see the cause and effect of leadership in ways that you cannot always trace back on the job.
5) You can get honest feedback from your peers about your performance. Feedback in real life is tough to give and receive when you have emotional, political, financial and organizational ties to the other person—whether they are giving or receiving. The neutral ground of a simulation supports honest, invaluable peer feedback.
Leadership skills require conscious focus and nurture. You can learn a lot about your leadership by trying it out—and a business simulation can provide a unique practice field for your leadership behaviors in action.
Want to learn more about leadership development and business training? Check out Insight's comprehensive leadership and simulation courses.
Amanda Young Hickman is co-founder of Insight Experience, a Boston-based firm delivering contextually rich, immersive business simulations and learning experiences to accelerate and integrate leadership, business acumen and strategy execution.
