Leadership Team Development

Leadership Services

Leadership Team Development Process

Our Leadership Team Development process is designed to support a leadership team over the course of 12 to 24 months. This time frame is built upon our principle of developing leaders through steady progress over time.

Our approach to leadership team development focuses in two key areas:

Alignment and effectiveness of the leadership team
Individual leadership effectiveness of each member of the team

Key Elements

A core process
Custom design as an integral component within the core process
An excellent team of process facilitators adept at meeting the team’s needs as they ebb and flow throughout the process

Phase 1: Discovery and Design

Our Leadership Team Development process begins with discovery. This provides us with important input and perspectives from the leaders on the team. Discovery allows us to build a set of development recommendations that combines an appropriate blend of core process plus customized work tailored to the needs of the team. There are two methods of discovery:

Leadership Team Focus Group

We start by getting the leadership team together for a 90-minute session to get their input in terms of both team effectiveness and individual leadership skills. We use a round-robin brainstorming process to gather responses from all members on all topics in a quick, efficient manner.

Leadership Team One-On-One Meetings

Following the group discovery session, we meet with each team member individually to learn more about background, skills, insights and concerns to more fully understand team effectiveness, individual leadership talent and to craft the best overall development recommendation. This gets accomplished in a 60-minute meeting with each person.

Upon completion of the two methods of discovery, a custom proposal is designed and presented.

Phase 2: Implementation

The Leadership Team Development implementation process may include:

Leadership Development

Open AllClose All

Team trust session

Trust issues show up within every team we’ve ever supported.
This session uses an activity called “let me tell my story” along with discussion around key trust topics to further develop relationships, better clarify roles, establish team ground rules for working together and begin to strengthen the presence of trust.
This session is typically comprised of one four-hour event, followed by a two-hour follow-up event.

360-degree feedback process for each team member

We offer a comprehensive 360-degree feedback assessment to provide each leader with a better understanding of their effectiveness in accountability, inspiration, coaching, feedback, humility, integrity, communication and overall leadership.
In addition to a quantitative assessment of the core leadership areas, there are open ended questions to allow for more information, examples and expanded feedback.
The assessment is online, user friendly, confidential and results are reported anonymously.
Feedback is collected from direct reports, peers and bosses.
Assessment results are provided to each leader in a 90-minute coaching meeting.
We recommend that the initial coaching session is followed by a three-way meeting that includes the facilitator, leader and the leader’s boss. At this meeting, each leader brings a completed personal development plan.

Workshops plus one-on-one coaching

Four core leadership workshops are instrumental in aligning the leadership team around a common set of leadership principles, models and skills. This information, when added to the team’s tool kit, provides the basis for conversation around multiple topics that follow.
We recommend these four core workshops:
- The Seven Most Common Mistakes Leaders Make
- Be a Great Coach
- Communicate By Design
- Understand Your Leadership Style
We combine the workshops with one-on-one coaching sessions. These sessions focus on reinforcement of material, individual skill application, accountability and addressing current leadership challenges.

Ongoing sessions to address a variety of leadership team topics

This part of implementation is focused on customized topics and team issues that have emerged up to this point. Common topics may include:
- Organizational culture
- Strategy
- Succession
- Team conflict
- Team communication
- Team core values
- The impact of ego
- Individual roles and responsibilities on the team
- Individual contributions related to strengths, values, background
These topics are typically discussed in two- to three-hour facilitated team sessions.
Note: Teams may meet monthly or bi-monthly. In our experience, there are certainly numerous priorities vying for a leader’s time. Available time is a core driver of our steady-progress-over-time approach.

Use of a few key books for development, discussion and alignment

We are fortunate to have books available for our use that have had a substantive impact on the teams we have worked with. Teams are able to experience alignment around core principles of team effectiveness and leadership.
A couple of the books we use most commonly with leadership teams:
- Leadership and Self Deception, by The Arbinger Institute.
- The Five Dysfunctions of a Team; Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive; and Silos, Politics and Turf Wars, all by Patrick Lencioni.
The use of books may be part of the monthly discussions described above.

What Our Clients Say About Us

"My team plays a critical role in the growth and success of our organization. With the demanding schedules we each have, combined with strong, diverse personalities on the team, we have found it extremely beneficial to have the support of a facilitator and coach. Living As A Leader plays this role for us. Over the years, we have solidified our alignment as a team, strengthened our ability to collaborate and experienced overall better team health."

- CEO, 1000-employee manufacturing company

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