PERFORMANCE FOCUSED LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT
Leadership is more than just a collection of traits, abilities or skills. As a leader, it is your responsibility to lead your teams in achieving and delivering towards goals and objectives set out in a broader context, with ambiguities, risks and assumptions being the unkown, when targets are to met with crucial certainty. This is not an easy task, especially not for new leaders who have grown from the ranks and mainly so because of their functional expertise, but seldomly because of their already existing leadership skills.
Whether leaders are born or made remains disputable, considering the many development programs for leaders, yet the still increasing voices emphasizing the lack of leadership in organizations and the decrease of loyalty and work satisfaction that is attributed to it. Leadership is, however, always specific to the case. The captain of a racing yacht in the Admirals Cup will access different means when commanding the crew than the project manager in a merger and acquisition case. A speaker in front of 2000 people will use different means to influence the audience than a sales director.
Leadership effectiveness depends on what elements matter in a specific scenario. Sometimes speed is essential, sometimes it is trust - still, we all agree that trust is not build over night and that need for speed often leads to procedures being skipped and authorities being circumvented. In essence, two specific leadership types can be rather controversial in the same setting. What it comes down to as a leaders, is, whether or not you are the leader for the particular job, or not.
6-Level Leadership Development
The leadership development program focuses on developing the leader within you, touching your deepest motivations, values and principles. It will help you gain new perspectives for your development as a leader and provide you with tools, insights, best practices and a network of people to assist while you take the lead and grow into the leader you want to be. This program is customizable and can be tailored to meet clients specific needs. It comprises the following 6 levels:
Level 1: Taking the lead - a level where reflection and discovery reveal the true nature of ones leadership, assess the readiness for taking on leadership assignments, clarify motivations and expectations as well as the principles by which one lives by and give insights into ones strategic patterns and preferences
Level 2: Developing your Team - a level where the different personality types, behaviours, preferences and motivations of individuals will be used to create the perfect team. Understanding the differences that make up our personality and learning to see different sides of the same personality will allow the leaders as well as the team members to interact in a much more sensible and considerate way, thereby laying the groundwork for interdependent co-working in a high-performance work environment.
Level 3: Leadership Instruments - the level focusing on tools and techniques used to improve the organizational design, enable performance and align the workforce behind a mission and its strategy. Tools such as SWOT Analysis, 360° Feedback, Feedback Instruments, Strategy Maps, Cause & Effect Chains, Performance Driver Maps, Balanced Scorecard, ISPI´s Performance Gap Analysis, Competency Tools and Appraisal Systems will be addressed briefly in its content, application and leadership value.
Level 4: Leading for Excellence - the level about attitude and achievement. This level seeks to establish an attitude of "only the best is good enough". Touching subjects like organizational learning, change ability, powerful communication styles, focused networking, corporate ethics or a general built-or-buy mentality or the use of advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence driven knowlege facilitation or OLAP databases and dashboards, this level raises the bar to the highest standard there is: excellence.
Level 5: Influence, Power and Control - underlines the need for an alternative to an authoritative and response-driven leadership style. In a world of constant change, quick decision making, fast processes and short time-to-market, to mention just a few, are examples where influence, power and control needs to reside not just on the top management level, but where it is needed. Influence, power and control need to be used, for example, as performance enablers, as gateways to resources or as bridges to shared knowledge and information. If used and applied wisely, influence, power and control can make all the difference.
Level 6: Change Leadership - focuses not so much on the organisational matters of a change or transformation, but more on shifting people´s minds towards a new direction, aligning their energy and enthusiam behind a new strategy and helping them re-focus on completely new goals. Enabling performance in an environment of uncertainty and discomfort is maybe the greatest challenge, a leader can face. This level outlines eight steps to implement and anchor change based on the work by John Kotter, Professor at Harvard University.
Good Leadership drives Performance
Before you think of this leadership program like any other, consider this: Level 1 and 2 focus on individual and team performance. Level 3 and 4 focus on organizational and process performance. Level 5 & 6 focus on cultural and leadership performance. This leadership program is about Performance.
If you are seeking to develop leaders that have the performance of the organizaton in the center of their focus, then don´t waste time and resources on academic leadership trainings that don´t get you anywhere. Start putting your leaders through a program that helps them build a performance organization, culture and high-performance teams.
Leading for Excellence
EXCELLENCE is an attitude. Attitude and behavior come down to what we are thinking, come down to our words and our language. The right thinking towards excellence allows us to value and cherish our common goals - it strives on positive believe systems, strategic thinking and appreciative communication.
We do not have to be in a leadership or management position, in order to drive excellence. But as a leader or a manager it is our obligation to install the right thinking towards achieving our goals. When you lead for EXCELLENCE, your words, attitudes and behaviors are seen as guiding lines and will be adopted by your teams.
If you are aiming for EXCELLENCE, so will your team. I can help you create an atmosphere of wanting to achieve EXCELLENCE.
Together we will eliminate believe and value systems that are hindering and could lower the teams' standards. We will improve communication, in a way, that achievement is seen as the only outcome. We will recognize and enhance meta-programs and behavioral patterns, so that we learn and train ourselves to be successful.
As a result, your team will make sure that standards are always kept high and everyone is working towards the same objectives. Quality, timeliness, efficiency and team spirit will simply be excellent! Customers, internal or external, will recognize the level of service they receive as outstanding. Markets, big or small, will attribute increased value to your product or service. Superiors, coworkers or partners will praise the work you’re doing and recommend it as an example to be followed.
You can see excellence, when you watch a crew win the Admirals Cup, when a new product (a car, a mobile phone or a training) succeeds customers´expectations, when new images from distant planets reveal new possibilities for the future of mankind or when a medical team rescues someone from a terrible car crash. EXCELLENCE is what matters the most, in life, in business, in partnerships, in sports, when raising a family, building a home or running a company.
As a leader, you have the unique opportunity to lead people in achieving EXCELLENCE.