Leadership and Personal Development

We believe that the 21st century and the new decade will bring faster and more certain change. Organisations will only anticipate that change and grow their business if their leaders at all levels are positive and have the right focus.

Leadership is the key to change. It can create high performance teams. It has the potential to transform business cultures and create ‘can do’ attitudes that flourish throughout the workplace. Organisations that get leadership right will cultivate internal business relationships that impact positively on the bottom line. But ‘getting it right’ won’t happen by accident. Indeed ‘leadership’ is too important to be left to chance. It needs stimulating, encouraging and nurturing at all levels which requires a planned approach to leadership development.

We belive that leaders going through our training and coaching can become 15% more effective enabling them to take on other functions and get the very best from their people. Our training is based on the latest research and concepts but delivered in a positive life-changing way and includes the latest thinking on social and emotional intelligence and positive psychology. We are interested in lasting results.

We also perform surveys of managers to determine their learning needs and demonstrate a business need for investing in their development.

We have supported several clients with competency development which we have then linked to development programmes.

“Britain’s productivity falls well short of the average of the other G7 powers ….. According to the Watson Wyatt Work Europe 2005 survey, only 12% of UK employees are “fully engaged” with their business compared to 36% of Swiss and 24% of Irish workers. Poor communication and a lack of trust in management were highlighted as major factors limiting engagement in the UK workplace”
ILM Edge Magazine Feb 2006

A taster of some of the workshops we deliver is shown below. They can also be supported with an Institute of Leadership and Management qualification: and be delivered as a suit to form an in house programme for your organisation.

Transformational Leadership

‘Leadership is about lighting fires within people rather than under them!’ (Anon)

We’ve all worked for great people. They’ve inspired us to the point that work didn’t feel like work. Unfortunately, we’ve also experienced the opposite, where work felt like a ten ton weight across your shoulders. The difference is life-changing and far too important to be left to chance.

Delegates will explore the key ingredients required for high performance individuals and teams in the modern world of work. The learning will then move on to examine the leadership styles that will best facilitate high performance, drawing on examples of best practice. Topic areas include transformational leadership, situational leadership and the leader and social and emotional intelligence and Goleman’s Repertoire. We also explore modern theories of motivation using Tad James’ career values and Flow.

The Art of Being Brilliant

‘Busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy…dead!’ (Robert Holden)

This workshop aims to transform the way you think about yourself and the impact you have on others. The aim is to inspire you to make the most of what you’ve been given. ‘The Art of Being Brilliant’ is grounded in the world of positive psychology - an obvious and blindingly simple set of principles for work (and life!). Ultimately, this workshop is about the choices we make. It energises participants to achieve massive personal change.

Leading with NLP

‘Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm’ (Winston Churchill)

We live in a world of constant upheaval, the Halifax, now Woollies, life is uncertain and it’s not going to stop so we can worry and fret or take charge now!

Imagine having a phone and only using it to make calls, all other functions not used. Well this is what most of us do with our brains. This fabulous life enriching day will enable you to completely reboot yourself and update yourself with new ways of thinking and behaving.

You will be shown the latest from the fields of Neuro Linguistic Programming, and hear about Social and Emotional Intelligence and get to grips with the latest science of Positive Psychology.

Content will include; using the filters in the brain, the use of positive language with yourself and others, choosing your state and attitude. A technique to rid your self of negative emotion. Cause and Effect and personal responsibility, anchoring positive states.

Investing in Excellence

‘Yesterday’s performance standards no longer apply. We’ve raised the bar.’ (anon)

Imagine if you woke up and found the your organisation was a perfect place to live and work. How did we get there? What did we do and what issues did we tackle first?

Investing in Excellence introduces delegates to the concepts of six sigma, Deming and process mapping. These tools are then used by delegates to select an improvement project for their area of work which will be used as part of the assessment process. We also introduce them to the tools of Appreciative Inquiry as an alternative to the traditional problem solving process.

Leading Change

‘In order to avoid having the rug pulled from under your feet you must learn to dance on a shifting carpet.’ (Prof John Quelch)

This workshop shifts perceptions about change which is, after all, an inevitable ingredient of modern life. The public sector is squeezed from all sides. Corporate clients continue to be challenged. Sure it can be exhausting but wouldn’t life be dull if we stood still? This workshop will get delegates to think about how they can positively manage themselves and others in order for change to be seen in as positive light as possible. We can order people to change. We can bully, manipulate, coerce and plead. Or we can inspire! This session focuses less on big words and more on tactics and strategies to get team members on board. The ultimate challenge in life is not merely how awesome you can be, but how many people you can take with you!

Our focus is on understanding our comfort zones and how the unconscious controls them in order that we can appreciate how difficult it is for team members to accept change. We also reinforce this with the importance for the leader being personally responsible and having self awareness and empathy. We cover topics such as changing rooms, culture, learning organisations PESTLE and Kotter’s 8 steps to effective change.

Coaching

“The illiterate of the twenty-first century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn.”
(Alvin Toffler)

This workshop teaches delegates how to become a ‘Positive Wizard’ and inspire those around them to see in themselves new possibilities and choices. Growing those around you and creating a ‘can do mentality’ are crucial facets of modern day leadership.

The workshop is designed to trigger delegates into seeing coaching as a means of maximising the potential of those around them.

Coaching can transform your leadership style, enabling you to be more people-centred. This is of massive benefit to the manager, their team and business results. The workshop includes opportunities to practice the art of coaching. We also focus on the ‘Being There’. Managers often find it very easy to become pre-occupied with meetings and emails. We aim to prove that building relationships is, dare we say, even more important than sending emails!

Delegates start from the position of self mastery (to give them credibility) and then learn to develop questioning techniques that encourage staff to take responsibility and ownership.

Performance management is integral to the content. Under-performance must and can be tackled and high performers will be grown further.

NLP in a Day!

‘Sit in the front row of your life – participate!’ (Anon)

NLP is about modelling excellence. The founders of Neuro linguistic Programming developed a series of models and techniques which can be used to enhance communication by appreciating that we all grasp different straws and have different models of reality. Themes we will cover include; favoured internal representational systems, VAK Ad. Building rapport, sensory acuity, anchoring and introduction to limiting belief change.

Leadership Practice

‘Either ‘do’ or ‘do not’, there is no ‘try.’ (Yoda)

This workshop aims to instil appropriate leadership styles and knowledge of team dynamics in order to maximise the potential of teams in the modern workplace. The focus is very much on the conditions necessary to create ‘world class’ teams. Sure, it’s a manic workplace (and probably equally crazy at home!) but there are simple habits to learn that will lighten the load. We will focus on some of the tried and trusted models of team roles (e.g., Belbin) but modernise with elements such how to tackle ‘mood hoovers’ and under performance with a short role play. We will also explore some new concepts in the field of motivation such as career values and use Appreciative Enquiry for delegates to create a vision for their teams.

Making it Happen!

‘My story is not about luck or a fairy tale’ (Lewis Hamilton)

Reasons or Results! This workshop is about making something happen and adding value. It introduces an improvement project for delegates to make a real difference in a key process back in the workplace. Key themes include; problem definition, finding out the facts, creative thinking, brainstorming, fishbone and decision making tools including cost benefit analysis.

Be a Brilliant Communicator and Assert yourself in a nice way!

We will explore how we communicate and filter out information and how we can select the correct level of detail and words to use to get our message across. We will look at rapport and using language and physiology to get our message across and how we can tell if someone is in a receptive state and likes what we are saying.

We will look at the six steps in selecting our method of communication and the barriers to communication at work. We will explore the assumptions we should make when communicating so we remain objective and in a positive frame of mind.

Assertive behaviour and communication are closely related. We will discover why people choose certain behaviours such as non assertiveness or aggression. How confident we feel will determine our behaviour so we will teach delegates both how to express them selves and how to anchor a positive state.

Vision and Strategy

This workshop can be as far out as the client desires. It will look at culture now and where we want to be, core competencies, PEST, leadership style, goal setting and visualization, market research and benchmarking. It can be delivered as an educational workshop or as part of a strategic planning process.