Leadership Development
Organizational Anatomy
An organization is made up of its people, its ideas and the focus of its teams to carry plans to completion. It is important to recognize that every organization — just like every individual — has its own leadership DNA and together these elements work to create or hinder the company’s overall success.
There are a number of elements required to build a brighter future for your company.
1. Continuous development of individuals and teams
2. The excitement of innovation
3. The discipline of determination
4. Rewards that go with solving problems
5. A business culture that has strong values and principles, and
6. A lot of focus.
Building the Leadership Foundation
For any organization it is important to build a leadership foundation to move forward. It is strong leaders that determine what is important and then set a clear direction. However, there is often a major disconnect between what leaders say they want and what they are actually doing.
For example:
1. Does your organization inadvertently provide employees with unlimited distractions?
2. Do you implement a never-ending variety of short-term solutions – aka – the program de jour – with no overall strategy?
3. Is there a lack of effective listening skills by senior managers to gather appropriate information?
4. Are there an excessive number of poorly managed meetings?
5. Does the daily flood of email create a sense of unrealistic urgency to everything?
6. Finally, are there outdated procedures, unproductive reporting systems, communication issues and cumbersome performance review processes?
So What Causes the Gaps Between What Is and What Should Be?
Is it leadership? Management competence? Individual skill development? Not accepting responsibility and accountability? All of these and more?
Kouzes & Posner in their book, Leadership Practices, dispel two popular myths about leadership: First, that leadership is an innate quality people are born with, and second, that only a select few can lead successfully.
The results of their research confirmed that leadership is not contained in a gene. Leadership is an observable set of skills and abilities that both experienced and novice leaders can use to turn challenging opportunities into remarkable successes.
Leadership begins when there is a genuine curiosity to explore how your skills and ability can be enhanced.
So, leadership development is self-development. The quest for leadership is first an inner quest to discover who you are. Learning to lead is about discovering:
- what you value
- what inspires you
- what challenges you
- what gives you power and competence
- what encourages you
When you discover these things about yourself, you’ll know what it takes to lead those qualities out of others.
What Makes the Best Leaders
The best leaders are the best learners … and you must learn first and then learn to lead second.
Good leaders want to understand their own strengths and limitations, along with those they work with. They want to know something about communication and leadership styles to help them align their role and the role of others. In addition, it is helpful to understand stress behaviors which can easily turn an overused strength into a weakness.
- If someone is conscientious there is a strong likelihood that under stress they will become somewhat of a perfectionist. Weakness: overly detailed leaders delay making decisions that will move a project forward.
- If a person can readily influence others then it is likely that under stress they will become more assertive in their views. Weakness: inability to listen and take in another’s point of view.
A learning environment encourages leaders to embrace their strengths and seek out strategies to play down their weaknesses.
Another significant aspect of leadership is the ability to understand how others perceive you. Since perception is reality, each day you are building your brand –good and bad – whether you realize it or not.
Our Programs
We offer several options to support the essentials of leadership development. All of these programs provide significant payoffs in terms of aligning organizational objectives with individual performance. Your people will be empowered with the tools and the inspiration to achieve greatly improved business results.
“Becoming a leader is a lot like investing in the stock market. If you hope to make a fortune in one day, you’re not going to be successful. What matters most is what you do day to day over the long haul.”
~~John Maxwell
Our Leadership Development Programs are custom-designed for impact and our training initiatives promise results. We have helped hundreds of people, in scores of diverse organizations, learn and apply both timeless leadership principles and exciting new cutting-edge practices.
Make no mistake; becoming an effective leader is a journey, not a sprint. It takes a commitment on the part of the emerging leader and on the part of the company.
Leadership Development takes place at three key levels that engage leaders on the journey from good to great.
1. Organizational Development
We will work with your senior management team to examine important issues and move your people into action aligned with organizational goals. We will help broaden your vision, explore options and give you the straight, hard facts on what you need to do as an organization to maximize your potential. The outcome will be an Action Plan that will align the group, get a commitment to change, followed by monthly monitoring of results.
2. Team Alignment and Coaching
Our seminars are tailor-made to meet your organizational objectives. We will give your staff invaluable lessons about themselves, their needs, their motivations and how they can work at a higher level of productivity by working with and through others. We offer a variety of assessments to choose from. The goal is for each individual to come away with a new perspective and enthusiasm both for the organization and their own potential.
Our expertise is in linking training and team executive coaching where each individual begins to immediately integrate and model what they have learned in our workshops and ultimately exhibit a more flexible leadership style.
3. Individual Development and Coaching
We also provide Executive Coaching customized for an individual as part of their personal development plan. This coaching can be done at any level within the organization – from front-line staff to the most senior executive.
Our proven methods are unique and highly successful. Remarkably, after years have passed, our clients can easily point to the specifics they learned and continue to apply. Unlike other training that is done ad hoc or in isolation, our lessons don’t dissipate after a couple of weeks! Participants gain insight into their strengths, weaknesses and their behavioral traits. They quickly recognize how these traits are either enhancing or hindering their credibility, performance and overall career achievement.
