Training and development are a vital part of every team member’s growth and success (including yours!) But there are common mistakes leaders make that undermine that success. In this episode with Director of Learning and Development from UFHealth Jacksonville, Dan Kurmaskie, you’ll get specific mistakes to avoid and how you can help your team get the most from their work with learning and development professionals – whether you have an internal Learning and Development team or are working with external partners like us at Let’s Grow Leaders.

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(00:11)
It’s David and you’re listening to Leadership Without Losing Your Soul. Your source for practical leadership, inspiration tools, and strategies you can use to achieve transformational results without sacrificing your humanity or your mind in the process.

Everyone, welcome to the show. So excited we’ve kicked off this series about how to partner with your HR, your ODI, your learning and development teams.

(00:37)
I am delighted to introduce you to our guest today. Dan Kurmaskie is the director of training and development for the University of Florida Health, Jacksonville. Dan has a great team, and a huge number of people that he and his team are helping to support through their training and development programs. There is so much available for you if you have your internal L and D team. And that’s why I’m so excited to have Dan here with us to talk about how leaders can best partner together. Dan, thank you for being here on Leadership Without Losing Your Soul.

(02:20)
So Dan, as we kick-off, I ask every guest this question, and I’m going to ask you to take us back to your first memory of yourself as a leader.

(08:38)
People get rewarded for behaviors that got them promoted, but ironically, those aren’t the behaviors they need in order to actually be a leader.

(11:05)
in a director role over training and development, I get an opportunity to work within an organization to determine and identify the direction and the effort that is being or going to be invested in for the company as a whole. And how does that translate down? Well, it begins with the work that you’re doing. So whatever industry you’re a part of, how and where are we going? And what are we trying to achieve?

(18:11)
Leaders can fall victim to the idea that a human resource function like training and development. We’ll just put them on with HR. We’d get with them and have training and development, do something they’ll just go through and then they’ll get that new thing installed and they’ll work better.

(21:55)
Mistake number three is trying to use training and development as a replacement for the accountability and leadership that you ought to be exercising yourself.

(23:55)
So you’re listening and thinking, alright I got to be prepared. I got to know what I’m going after.  I’m not going to use training as a replacement for the accountability and leadership that I need to be providing. I will partner with my learning and development team and still exercise the leadership I need to. I’m not going to expect HR to wave a wand and change somebody. But then number four, what you just said is that as a leader, I need to be willing to learn and develop myself. And to have that conversation when something isn’t going the way that we hoped it would. We need to be open to our own growth in that moment.