As a leader, your objectives include building an inspiring vision and setting the direction to achieve this vision. In this mission, not everyone in your team will agree on every detail. Even your closest confidants will at one point have different viewpoints on the what, when, where, how, or who. Without negotiation skills, your team may find itself stuck in disputes.
Whether you’re a leader in business, politics, a religious organization, or the head of a home, negotiations training helps leaders and their teams gain the following 5 benefits:
Negotiation Skills Clarify Expectations
Deal making is an important business management function. However, many deals fall through, get into dispute, and even end up in litigation when parties aren’t clear on expectations. Leaders can gain the necessary skills by taking a negotiating course.
If you’re a skilled negotiator, you know that getting the best deal requires everyone involved to clearly and accurately know what is expected right from the get-go. This is especially important for leaders in HR functions seeking to retain the best talent.
Clarifying expectations improves personal and organizational performance since everyone knows what’s expected of them and how their efforts tie in with the overall mission.
Strategic Negotiations Create Win-Win Situations
Talking of deals and expectations, a skilled negotiator will always work to create deals where all parties feel like they’re getting value in the exchange.
A successful trade-off creates a positive environment and nurtures growth. On the flip side, a deal that leaves one party feeling short changed will create a suspicion-ridden relationship. In such a relationship, the losing side will always be seeking greener pastures. The “winning” side will always be afraid of being abandoned and unable to fulfill commitments on the sudden withdrawal of the “losing” side.
This has been a subject of controversy with suppliers of the retail giant, WalMart. There have been reports of suppliers going under due to the retail giant’s Every Day Low Price (EDLP) policy. However, Sarah Talley and Frey Farms managed to negotiate a win-win solution that saw all parties thriving.
Negotiation skills training works to equip a leader to bring value to customers, partners, employees, and even competitors. This breeds loyalty and provides an enabling environment for growth and continuity.
Skillful Negotiators Boost Profitability
Even as you create a win-win situation, your role as a leader is to get the best possible deal for your team, company, or organization. Getting the best deal may seem contradictory to win-win, but it’s not.
For business leaders, instead of paying your employees less, you can hire more specialists and automate menial tasks formerly handled by manual laborers. This leaves your remaining employees feeling valued while increasing productivity and boosting profits.
Negotiation helps you get rid of wastage and reduce overheads, and this translates to better profit margins. As a leader, negotiation skills help you improve partnerships and terms of engagement, without antagonizing your counterparty.
Skilled Negotiators Attract Leadership Respect
Leaders can only operate effectively where they command the respect of partners, colleagues, employees, vendors, and clients. If you establish respect, they get to trust your word and support you to achieve your vision. A negotiation workshop empowers a leader with empathy, so they can balance the needs of all counterparties and gain their respect.
A skilled negotiator will create a positive lasting impression after every negotiation by handling all parties fairly, creating win-win situations, and leaving all involved with a clear idea of what they’re supposed to do and how it supports the overall vision.
Negotiation Training Builds Leader Confidence
Confidence is paramount in leadership. It’s vital for a leader to walk into a potentially explosive situation while maintaining a cool demeanor and an air of confidence. Enrolling in a quality negotiation class can help you develop the confidence to encounter any situation.
As a leader trained in negotiations, you can confidently walk into any meeting without fear or anxiety of being outperformed by the opposing party. A trained negotiator comes prepared, full of knowledge, and radiating confidence, ready to tackle any curve balls in the most effective way.
This kind of confidence is what convinces others to follow a leader and support the attainment of the vision.
Why Do Leaders Need Negotiation Competence?
Negotiation is about finding creative solutions to shared problems. However, not everyone wants to be in a position that requires negotiation. For instance, a study by the US staffing firm Robert Half found that only 39 percent of employees tried negotiating their starting salary when interviewing at their last job. With negotiation competence, you’re already ahead of the pack and on your way to leadership.
Leaders regularly find themselves in positions where they’re required to negotiate. Whether it’s a brainstorming session with team members, a dispute among employees, or brokering a huge deal, the true leader emerges to make offers that are agreeable to everyone.
Having the right negotiations training will allow you to boost your personal development and career advancement. Effective negotiation skills training will enhance your persuasion, communication, problem-solving, and conflict resolution skills. When you’re competent as a negotiator, you are more likely to attract support, funding, and clients to achieve your vision.
Short bio: Specialists in the corporate business negotiation market, The Negotiation Experts offer instructive advice on their site via articles, Q&A’s, book reviews, case studies, and negotiating definitions.