INTRODUCTION

We take the fundamental position that there are three arenas in which leaders need to be effective and each of these arenas require different skill sets: individual leadership; team leadership, and organization leadership. In addition, no leadership instruction would be complete without a substantial focus on the leader himself/herself. Fully half of a leader's ability to influence others is derived from the leader's own intra-personal awareness and interpersonal competency Hence each of our seminar participants receives coaching and feedback from both peers and our facilitators throughout the instructional cycle

OVERVIEW

A leader must spend the time to become thoroughly acquainted with each individual's unique set of values, talents and needs. This is a reiterative process which builds a relationship with that person over time. The first part of this module provides participants with the soft skills to better understand each person as a unique entity. As this relationship develops so does the leader’s ability to become more influential with this person. The second part of this module provides participants with specific hard leadership tools to maintain an effective dialogue, provide feedback, and select the leadership style appropriate for the individual and the task at hand. Key concepts in this module are described below.

MOTIVATING INDIVIDUALS

Value clarification: understanding own values and how they shape attitudes
Recognition of diverse values, attitudes and needs in the workplace
Identification of the need to draw on the unique talents of each individual
Acknowledging the diverse career needs found in the workplace
Meeting the leadership challenge of maintaining consistency and fairness while acknowledging the variety of motives found in the workplace

MAINTAINING A DIALOGUE

The preconditions for dialogue
Active Listening: the ultimate leadership skill
Recognizing hidden assumptions
Finding the common ground

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE

Empathy: reading other people's emotions without their having to tell you what they are feeling.
Handling feelings in relationships with skill and harmony -- being able to articulate the unspoken pulse of an individual, a group and a situation and respond appropriately.
Knowing your feelings and using them to make life decisions you can live with.
Being able to manage your emotional life without being hijacked by it -- not being paralyzed by depression or worry, or swept away by anger. Persisting in the face of setbacks and channeling your impulses in order to pursue your goals.

PROVIDING FEEDBACK

Elements of effective feedback
Understanding the need to address behaviors not perceived attitudes
Distinguishing between criticism and feedback

CONFLICT MANAGEMENT

Coping with difficult people
Conflict management styles
Getting to Yes
Traps and problems
Assertiveness vs. aggressiveness

DECISION MAKING / PROBLEM SOLVING

Problem solving models and when to use them
Determining who should be involved
Priority Setting
Decision making options
Criteria for selecting the appropriate decision option
Gaining commitment without consensus
Creating opportunities to adjust decisions based on new information

SELECTING A LEADERSHIP STYLE

Understanding and choosing the appropriate leadership style
Knowing when to shift styles
Understanding your own preferred leadership style

ESTABLISHING PERFORMANCE OBJECTIVES IN A CIVIL SERVICE ENVIRONMENTE

Measurability vs. subjectivity
Clarifying priorities and methods to shift priorities
Distinguishing between what is to be accomplished vs. how it is to be accomplished
Linkage of measurable performance objectives to position descriptions
Establishing agreement on resources required to meet objectives
Establishing appropriate decision authority
Knowing when to and how to shift from counseling to coaching
Adding “stretch” to employee performance through coaching
Coaching through conversation

SPECIAL FEATURE

"Dialogue: Now You’re Talking" A video program that teaches the principles of dialogue across culture, gender and age differences. Produced by Quality Media Resources, The Respectful Workplace Company

MEASUREMENT TOOLS APPLICABLE TO THIS INSTRUCTION

Hershey & Blanchard Situational Leadership
Rocheach Value Survey
Marcus Buckingham's Talent Inventory
Edgar Schein's Career Anchors
Thomas Kilman Conflict Styles Instrument

TEXTS FROM WHICH MATERIAL WILL BE DRAWN

Now, Discover Your Strengths, by Buckingham
The 8th Habit, by Steven Covey

AT THE COMPLETION OF THIS MODULE PARTICIPANTS WILL BE ABLE TO DEMONSTRATE THE FOLLOWING SKILLS

Shows respect and concern for people as individuals
Takes the time to understand the person in order to motivate them
Actively listens to what a person is saying: Is attentive to the words, the non-verbals and the emotional content of the message
Communicates ideas and expectations clearly
Provides sufficient recognition and rewards when performance is excellent
Provides timely and effective feedback when performance is poor
Encourages and accepts constructive criticism
Effectively assesses other's ability and willingness to perform tasks
Does not hesitate to provide clear direction and close supervision when needed
Provides coaching and assistance when needed
Is able to sell his / her ideas to others
Delegates decisions to others as appropriate

CONCLUSION

There is a soft and a hard side to leading individuals. Common to all cultures is the need to be recognized, heard and respected. I must know you, accept you and care about you before you will be willing to follow me. Then I must have the hard skills to communicate, provide feedback and choose an appropriate style of leadership.

OVERVIEW

This is the in-house version of a national public seminar sponsored by American Management Association that our colleagues have been delivering to attendees from Fortune 500 companies for fifteen years. It identifies processes that must be in place for department teams to be effective. The seminar provides participants with the structure to create commonly understood and accepted procedures and establishes clear expectations for individuals to be effective as team members. This is a highly interactive workshop in which participants are placed in teams and those teams are given tasks that elicit the team processes being discussed. Teams evaluate their own effectiveness and make appropriate corrections.

CREATING A TEAM CHARTER

Establishes the need for a written mutually agreed upon set of team processes.
Defines the elements of a team charter
Provides case study examples of a variety of team charters
Offers methods to evaluate and revise a team charter on an ongoing basis

COMMUNICATION

Establishes criteria for effective interpersonal and team communication, identifies the barriers to communication, and offers procedures to correct communication breakdowns.
Offers a menu of communication options available to teams.
Provides a method for teams to establish what has to be communicated, to whom, in what formats, with what frequency.

EXERCISING DECISION MAKING OPTIONS

Establishes criteria for healthy decision making on teams.
Provides a menu of consensus decision-making options available to teams, discusses the advantages of each.
Establishes a procedure for coming to consensus on the decision making process to be used prior to the discussion of the content.

DEFINING TEAM ROLES

Offers procedures for coming to an understanding of each team member's role on a team.
Establishes each individual's role in making decisions, and defines the actions that each team member is expected to take and the actions they are expected not to take.
Provides a method to establish very clear behavioral expectations of every team member
Establishes an equally agreed upon procedure to hold individual team members accountable to the team for the performance of those roles

TEAM MEMBER LEADERSHIP SKILLS

Leadership on high performing teams is shared.
It shifts depending upon the issue being addresses.
Leadership tends to go to those who meet the team's needs.
This instruction identifies the variety of behaviors that make for effective team leadership, and distinguishes leadership from dominance.

ADDITIONAL CONCEPTS THAT MAY BE INCLUDED IN THIS MODULE

When to use teams. Team size. Team membership. Self directed teams. Meeting management. Managing conflict among members. Inter-group conflict. Individual team member effectiveness.

SPECIAL FEATURE

At the completion of this module each participant is given individual feedback concerning his or her individual style as a team member.

MEASUREMENT TOOLS APPLICABLE TO THIS INSTRUCTION

Team Effectiveness: Task and Maintenance Styles, Bales
Kiersey Sorter: Problem Solving / Communication Styles

AT THE COMPLETION OF THIS MODULE PARTICIPANTS WILL BE ABLE TO DEMONSTRATE THE FOLLOWING SKILLS

Conducts meetings effectively
Makes timely individual decisions where appropriate and involves team members in the decision making process where appropriate
Insures team members understand their roles and responsibilities
Insures team efforts are properly coordinated
Encourages open and candid discussion of critical areas affecting the team before making a decision
Builds commitment through participation
Insures that all views are heard and considered during team discussions
Copes effectively with disruptive team members
Knows when to lead. Follow, or get out of the way during group activities
Encourages a candid and open discussion of the group's process
Takes responsibility for decisions once they have been made

CONCLUSION

There are two critical aspects to leading teams. First, the leader must put all the procedures in place to insure team members coordinate their actions smoothly and without friction. These procedures take the form of a written explicit mutually agreed upon team charter or by laws. Second, the leader must have the requisite team communication skills that are different from one-on-one skills and encourage the development of those skills in others.

OVERVIEW

At a certain point, organizations “tip” into something else. They no longer behave like an organization “should”. Directives go ignored. Information becomes twisted. Technology gurus march to their own drummer. Different pockets of the organization have fundamentally different cultures and respond in some cases more readily to outside agencies than they do to their own chain of command. Powerful informal information networks are embedded throughout the system. Indeed at times it becomes unclear exactly where the boundaries of the organization are drawn or if there are any real boundaries at all. The “organization chart” is a lie. At best it tells you people’s phone numbers. No one is in charge. In fact the higher up you go in this complex system the less total control you have. You are not at the top. You are not at the bottom. You find yourself in the middle of a mess. Many of the leadership skills you have developed over the course of a career seem not to be as relevant in this environment.

Leadership in complexity does not come from the top. There is ample evidence that most large-scale change efforts initiated from the top do not succeed. People will block them, wait them out only to sabotage them later, or the culture itself will eventually kill them. It certainly does not come from the bottom. Leadership comes from “the muscle in the middle” when those in the middle know how to flex those muscles. This module introduces participants to time tested tools to cut through this complexity. We address methods to develop a network of stakeholders located throughout the organization that provide you with an ongoing source of information and resources not obtainable within the chain of command. We provide methods to identify and capitalize on the skunk works within that network. We describe and demonstrate the only way to articulate goals that have a chance of being accomplished in this kind of environment and provide methods for recruiting the right mix of stakeholders and sponsors in support of those goals. Lastly we demonstrate how to wield the levers of organization culture to insure that the new behaviors are permanently embedded in and rewarded by the culture. This is not a theory class. This is a hands-on highly participative half-day portion of the seminar that delivers immediately usable skills.

ESTABLISHING A VISION

Identifies the key elements of an effective vision at any level
Provides examples of effective mid level visions that have led effective organization change efforts
Participants create visions for their own circle of influence and participants vote with their feet by joining those who have articulated a vision that has met the criteria described above

DEVELOPING THE NETWORK

Understand the importance of stakeholders: the higher one moves through an organizational structure the less total control one has. This explores the use of stakeholders within a structure to assist in the leadership process and enhance the ability to effectively manage change
Understand how to identify key stakeholders in an organization for a specific change effort
Understand the methods available communicate with and influence key stakeholders and stakeholder groups
Participants develop a recruiting plan for their vision based on the above principles

LEADING CHANGE

Identifies what needs to be communicated
Explores methods of communication
Establishes the importance of creating early successes
Coping with high level resistors

ASSESSING THE CULTURE

Identification of the key elements of organization culture
Identifying strengths and weakness of a particular culture, given the environment in which it operates
Identifying the cultural barriers to change
Developing an action plan for cultural change

SPECIAL FEATURE

This module begins with a very dynamic exercise that involves all participants and creates within a short period of time a dysfunctional organization: hierarchies, filtered communication, independent power bases, and a general breakdown in effectiveness. This exercise is designed to create an awareness of the problems inherent in any organizational structure and solutions to each problem. Most of the instructional content of the course is related back to this opening exercise. In addition case studies from actual Auburn Group & Associates clients will are used to demonstrate fundamental principles

MEASUREMENT TOOLS APPLICABLE TO THIS INSTRUCTION

Constructing an Organization Culture Profile by Cameron & Quinn

TEXTS FROM WHICH MATERIALS WILL BE DRAWN

Diagnosing and Changing Organization Culture by Cameron & Quinn
Leading Change by Kotter

AT THE COMPLETION OF THIS MODULE PARTICIPANTS WILL BE ABLE TO DEMONSTRATE THE FOLLOWING SKILLS

Identifies the elements of an effective vision and provides examples.
Effectively establishes and articulates a vision for his / her sphere of influence which focuses resources and energy
Leads with personal enthusiasm and commitment
Maintains the larger systemic view of a complex organization.
Understands how to obtain commitment from stakeholders in and outside the organization
Maintains sufficient flexibility and adaptability to shift priorities as appropriate
Actively takes steps to insure that the culture and climate of the organization remains healthy

CONCLUSION

Effective long-term change occurs when a small number of individuals develop a vision within their circle of influence: recruit the right stakeholders; manage the change process over time and address whatever cultural issues need to be changed. This module provides them with tools to initiate a change effort or participate in a team involved in a change effort.