When people hear the word “critical”, negative images come to mind. They think about people seeing the bad side of every situation. However, being critical can actually be pretty helpful, especially if you are choosing something which you will be paying for. One such thing is a leadership development course. People take such a course in order to help them improve their leadership skills and get ahead in life.

People who take leadership development courses pay good money for them. If you are one of these people, you don’t want to be wasting your cash on some life lesson that you could have picked up from a storybook, do you? Being critical about choosing leadership development courses can help you save a lot of money.

In taking a leadership development course, you will also invest a lot of time. You invest time because you believe that you will be getting knowledge in return. You need to be critical of leadership development courses because you want to invest your time into something that’s worth it.

The key to being critical is information. Without information, how will you be able to judge the quality of a leadership development course?

You may be able to gather information from:

a) Websites –

On the internet, you can gather a lot of information about pretty much everything. You might want to try looking at the website of the school or company offering the leadership development course. Through this site, you might gain a bit more knowledge regarding the leadership development course. You might also gleam from such websites some information that would help you get through the course easily. They might have listings of required readings to help you get ahead in the course.

Other websites which you can check out would be review sites. These sites would let you know what other people think about a specific leadership development course. You need to bear in mind, however, that people have different preferences. What one person may label as “educational” another may label as “boring”. As there is no way to put yourself inside another person’s head, you are going to have to view each review in an objective manner and see which opinion can apply to you.

b) Print media –

A lot of schools and companies offer written information about their leadership development courses. This includes accomplishments of people who previously took those courses, the general subject of the courses, and the requirements for a person to be able to take that course.

These print media also give you a lot of information beyond the words printed on them. Take a look at the quality of the paper. Do you think you will be able to trust a company which uses such paper to advertise their leadership development course? Other facts can be deduced from the print media of a company.

c) Talk to people –

From other people, you can get a glimpse of the quality of a leadership development course. If the course itself is new, you can get an idea about the reputation of the company or the people running the company.