The Skillful Leader

A growing body of research reveals that the surest route to a sustainable edge is a workforce of highly “engaged” employees. These are individuals willing to contribute discretionary effort and creativity–choosing to go above and beyond expectations–to further their organization’s success.

However, resent studies by Towers Perrin and Blessing-White found that only 3 out of 10 North American workers are fully engaged. Even more distressing, close to 20% are actively disengaged! These latter are typically the ones who spread contagious negativity.

How do you create a culture of high engagement in your organization?

How do you turn around your less engaged employees and remove this drag on maximizing results?

Outstanding leadership at the top is certainly a key part of the answer…but it is not enough! Your top team may be the most visionary, strategic, forward thinking, inspiring group around, but without strong leadership at all levels of your management team you can’t foster highly engaged employees or the positive impact they will have on your enterprise’s capacity.

Your managers are the missing link.

This is where The Skillful Leader comes in.

It's your mid-level management team that turns the vision and goals into action and results. They are the ones who directly motivate and engage your employees.

We have designed The Skillful Leader to help them do exactly that.

This program covers the range of managerial skills that are essential for fostering an engaged workforce. Blending interpersonal effectiveness with a strong orientation toward business results, these competency areas include self-awareness, interacting with others, leading staff, and focusing everyone on achieving maximum performance.

10 things The Skillful Leader will teach your managers to do:

1. Increase their leadership effectiveness, generating greater results.
2. Manage themselves and their time in order to accomplish business priorities.
3. Identify and leverage their own unique leadership strengths and style.
4. Inspire their people to action through the power of shared vision.
5. Align the actions of their people with their organization’s strategy.
6. Build a culture of employee engagement, personal accountability, ongoing innovation, and high productivity.
7. Know when and how to delegate in a way that ensures quality results while developing the employee.
8. Develop their direct reports to their potential.
9. Conduct honest performance management conversations that motivate, rather than demoralize, their people.
10. Engage effectively with a wider variety of personality types.

The Process
The Skillful Leader development process combines (1) group learning, (2) individualized coaching and (3) post-program reinforcement. Together, these elements promote lasting behavior change.

Group Learning
Our six-day classroom training is divided into three 2-day segments, scheduled three to six weeks apart. This phasing of sessions allows participants to implement and practice back on the job a few new behaviors at a time. Each workshop employs a rich variety of learning techniques, including:

- Theory/concept presentations

- Stories and examples

- Hands-on skill practice

- Skill demonstration by the presenter

- Coaching in class

- Videos demonstrating how to do (or not to do) certain skills

- Small group discussions

- Individual reflection

- Problem-solving on real situations from participants’ workplace

- Role-playing

- Simulations

- Concrete action planning for back at work

Individual Coaching
Every participant receives a one-hour coaching session with one of our facilitators after each two-day segment (a total of three hours of coaching). We help them understand any material on which they are not clear. We both challenge and encourage them to try out and practice newly learned behaviors. And we support them around any skills which they find particularly difficult to apply

Post-Program Support

Following the six-day program, we reinforce behavior change in several ways:

• For a full year your participating managers receive a monthly e-mail that highlights a key lesson from the curriculum and introduces new ideas and tips not presented in class.
• We conduct a debrief with your executive team to share our observations about the group and discuss ways in which you can support the transformation from new skills to permanent behavior.
• For six months after the last classroom day participants are welcome to contact any of the presenters with questions or issues relating to managing their people.

Program Overview

Day 1: They’re Not Crazy, They’re Just Not You:
            Understanding Yourself and Others

• What Personality Type is and why it matters
• How we gain self-awareness
• Human nature comes in four flavors: discovering the four temperaments
• Using temperament to increase your impact
• Identifying other people’s temperament
• Temperament and your natural leadership style

Day 2: What You Heard Is Not What I Meant:
            Communication Skills That Achieve Mutual Understanding

• The Role of perception in communication
• Interaction Styles at work:
• Directing vs. Informing
• Initiating vs. Responding
• Transferring understanding (the goal of communication)
• Using questions and listening to pull out understanding
• How to communicate assertively

Day 3: Take Me To Your Leader: Leadership Fundamentals for Managers

• What it really means to be a “leader”
• A roadmap for leadership development: The Leadership Circle
• Mission & Vision: tools to focus your unit
• Sources of Employee Motivation
• 4 ways to look at motivation
• Helping employees Identify their motivation to work

Day 4: Onward and Upward: Coaching Skills That Grow Your People

• The manager’s role as a Coach
• A framework for Performance Coaching
• The Self Fulfilling Prophecy (When you really believe in the employee’s abilities)
• A three-fold process for Skills Coaching
• The G.R.O.W. model of Developmental Coaching – Goal, Reality, Options, Will

Day 5: Getting It Done Through People (I)
            - Managing Your Priorities and Clarifying Expectations

• Managing your own performance – time, priorities, and balance
• Aligning your activity with unit and organizational goals
• Delegating tasks AND authority
• What constitutes “performance”
• The positive impact of feedback on individual performance
• How to foster accountability in performance discussions
• The Performance Planning Phase

Day 6: Getting It Done Through People (II)
            - Delivering Ongoing Feedback and Formal Reviews

• The Performing Phase
• 8 tips for delivering feedback effectively
• 5 performance shortfalls you simply must address
• The Performance Review Phase
• How to conduct the year-end performance appraisal discussion
• Putting it all together: analyzing an actual people management challenge you face

To create a mid-level management team that can create widespread levels of high employee engagement, call us at 1-866-855-8631 or email us at: info@enduringedge.com.