8 principles for senior leadership training
08/10/2010, Author: Alison France
I have spent much of the last 4 years designing and facilitating increasingly in-depth leadership training which addresses development on behavioural, attitudinal and emotional levels. During this time, I have noticed as rapport and trust increase, the delegates accept challenge on greater attitudinal and emotional levels. This has led some to question their own personal values which is extremely rewarding in terms of encouraging leaders to make lasting changes. However as a professional business psychologist, I do not wish to 'play god' and facilitate learning which presents too high a challenge or prompts delegates to adopt my values.
To explore this further I began some discussions on Linkedin which received contributions from a number of fellow professionals. Based on these I have detailed the following principles which underpin my practice.
1. Recognising and valuing diversity
Many organisations have values about diversity these days which are often misunderstood to be confined to the remits of gender, sexuality, ethnicity etc. However, for me, valuing diversity means taking time to truly understand the opinions, motivations and personality of each individual and valuing their own personal contribution. Admittedly, the more another person differs from your personal values, the more this becomes difficult! Being aware of this helps me avoid attempting to model leaders’ self-development towards a pre-defined ‘ideal leader’ which does not exist.
2. Self-awareness and ‘Transference’
I continually strive to understand my own personality and values by increasing my self-awareness through reflection, feedback and personality assessments. Using this awareness, I avoid ‘Transference’ (i.e. reacting to a leader or leading discussions based on my personal feelings and values) as much as possible. Ensuring the focus is always on the leader during development rather than my personal reactions or agendas is not always easy but an essential part of my practice.
3. Developing rapport and trust
My first priority when beginning any leadership development session is to build trust and rapport with each individual and the group as a whole to create an environment of open discussion. This includes ensuring that everyone in the room values the other people as individuals and challenging anyone who may threaten the environment.
4. Congruence/Authentic leadership
For me, one of the most important aspects of my training is that my thoughts, feelings and behaviour are all in alignment. I believe this ensures my communication style is more effective and I gain the respect of the leaders I train. The more difficult side of this is what happens when there is incongruence between my personal values and those of the organisation I am working for – I’d like to say I don’t work for any organisations unless we have complete agreement in values – however I have found this impractical. In reality I concentrate on the shared values and differences are often small.
5. Clear relationship boundaries
I believe it is essential to set clear, professional boundaries to relationships with leaders. For me this can include building friendships whilst maintaining a trainer/delegate professional relationship. Where this boundary lies differs for everyone and it reminds me of the leader/employee relationships I created when I was an operational manager.
6. Supervision/Coaching for the trainer!
An essential part of my practice is that I have at least one person with whom I can discuss my approaches and specific events during my training. This person should be someone who is willing to listen, support and challenge my ideas. I’m lucky to have this relationship with more than one of my fellow trainers!
7. Enabling leaders to take responsibility to define their own level of challenge
Despite taking lots of care and attention to design and deliver training which provides an appropriate level of challenge for the leaders involved, I sometimes need to make adjustments to meet individual’s specific requirements. However, this is always based on what the leaders are asking for. This can sometimes be a delicate balance to ensure I correctly distinguish between a leader who is seeking encouragement and one who is just not up for the challenge. The key point is to listen to what they are saying and not force them into a task just because it is part of the course, or I feel it will help their development.
8. Focus on work life
I recognise that I am not (and do not wish to be) a counsellor. Therefore the focus of my work with leaders is always their work life. Occasionally leaders themselves make links with their personal life which can lead to more significant and lasting development for them, but this is always their choice.
Conclusions...
So these are the values and approaches I bring into the room when leading others in their self development.
However, this is not the end! As a person who continually seeks personal development, I’d be really interested to hear the perspectives of both other trainers and also leaders who are on the receiving end of some of our training!!
As fellow trainers, what are your experiences/opinions of this?
For leaders what would you expect/want from your leadership training?
You can comment at the end of this blog, on one of the Linkedin discussions or get in touch with me directly at Alison@criterionpartnership.co.uk .
Acknowledgements
Thanks to the fellow professionals who replied to my original post and helped develop my ideas. They are:
Stuart Haden
Paul Strange
Richard Boston
Scott Lichtenstein
Mark Grimshaw
Richard Kwiatkowski
Stephen Hall
Michael Costello
Further reading
The complete posts and replies can be found in the discussion boards for the following Linkedin groups:
Psychologists in the UK
Training Journal
Linked:HR (#1 Human Resources Group)
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