Treena began to feel very weak. Parts of her body began to feel tired and achy. She had stopped receiving the stimulation and life source she needed to go on, losing the ability to make any company decisions or fulfill job duties.

She felt as if her system was about to shut down.

Just then she heard the words from her supervisor: “You’re being selected for a new training program based on your potential to lead.”

That’s all it took for her blood source to be revived and for Treena to find the motivation not only to keep going but also to finally make a difference.

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One nonprofit is not only saving lives with their blood drives, they’re saving their top employees with their commitment to leadership development.

While the above vignette was a fictional look into an employee’s dissatisfaction with workplace stimulation, below is a quote from the real Treena Fartsi: an employee of Virginia Blood Services (as reported in a recent Workforce Management article: http://tiny.cc/nF7tR) after she was granted a shot at leadership development.

“It makes me want to work harder,” to become even more of an asset to the company,” Treena says.

Virginia Blood Services has hit the importance of leadership development right on the nail.

In the article, writer Garry Kranz writes: “Virginia Blood Services illustrates the physics of leadership development: Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.”

Virginia Blood Services committed several years ago to motivating its employees with professional development and teaching their technical gurus how to effectively manage others.

Program participants were chosen from various departments, including health services, recruitment and sales. The opportunity to grow professionally was a key enticement.

“That was what they were told: ‘You’re being selected for your potential to lead,’” (said Robert E. Carden, president and CEO of the 280-employee company).

At Virginia Blood Services, that reaction was a positive one: “It puts some amount of pressure on a person to be viewed as a potential leader, but I feel I have been given the resources to achieve it,” Debbie, an employee, says.

As nonprofit organizations face a leadership deficiency in coming years, Virginia Blood Services will not be part of that trend.

We would argue that nonprofit organizations are not the only companies in danger of facing a large leadership deficit, as companies across the board cut training programs and leadership development from their budget in the recent recession.

But as Kranz article demonstrates, their commitment to leadership development is posing Virginia Blood Services to have a healthy leadership pool in the long run.

Kranz writes: Carden says the leadership training accomplished a more enduring goal: getting individuals to take the initiative in shaping policies, making improvements to operations and pursuing any training they might need to fulfill their job duties.

Virginia Blood Services program consisted of six training classes with a focus on the organization’s values, mission and policies and determining areas of growth for each individual. We urge companies to take a lesson from Virginia Blood Services and start pumping blood through the veins of your top performers before it’s too late.

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