It takes a special type of person to be a great leader. Or does it?
At Insights we believe that with the right guidance and encouragement, anyone can become an inspiring leader – it’s simply a matter of helping an individual to identify their own preferred way of doing things, then helping them to adapt it to suit their situation and the team they lead.
In the next of our inform and inspire series of workshops - Leaders Who Inspire: Maximising the Impact of Your Leaders – you’ll begin by encouraging individuals to identify their leadership styles and then help them to make sure that their style is right for the personality of the team they lead. After all, in order for a leader to get the best from a team, it’s important they know how to get the best from themselves.
Using the Management Chapter from the Insights Discovery Personal Profile, you will encourage leaders to look at their own ideal environment and discuss with others what can happen if they are at odds with it. For example, what is helping and or/hindering their ability to lead effectively? But no one exists in a vacuum, so you will also help leaders to identify who else they need to take with them on their leadership journey.
It all begins with the individual
But what’s it like when roles are reversed? You’ll encourage leaders to think about a situation when their own manager didn’t give them the support they needed. What can they learn from past difficult experiences? You will encourage leaders to sit down with their own manager back in their workplace and build on that relationship for future success.
You will also help leaders to reflect on their own best and worst experiences of leadership and what they’ve learned from them. Are there any important issues they’re facing right now that need to be addressed? You’ll encourage them to examine their own leadership style, styles that are different from their own, and to consider the leadership culture in their workplace. Are different styles of leadership valued? Or might some people be adapting their natural style to fit in with the company’s expectations?
What are the traits of a great leader?
All great leaders have one thing in common: they are very self-aware, and constantly search for the most effective way to connect with others. This is dynamic, as the context they lead in changes constantly, so they utilise a wide number of tools and skills for each situation. To bring this to life, you’ll ask leaders to look at what they think are the essential traits of great leadership and then align these with the four colour energies. You will help them explore how they’ve used each of the colour energies in the past and how to achieve that all-important balance.
When things go wrong
Everyone has ‘off’ days! This programme will review ‘bad day’ use of the colour energies in leadership and encourage delegates to reflect on leaders within their organisation who’ve made an impact – perhaps for the wrong reasons. When there’s too much or too little of a certain colour energy then the whole team will know about it!
Motivation and de-motivation
You will encourage leaders to discuss what drives them and what holds them back from achieving their leadership goals. You’ll help leaders examine:
- Their own individual leadership development
- How to develop good relationships with team members
- How their personal style impacts decision making
So, how do we create great leaders?
We all know that a great leader isn’t a super-human being, but they can be encouraged to continue learning and growing. You can help them make a conscious effort to choose an approach that best suits the team they lead and encourage them to know how to communicate with their team members and develop good relationships with them.
Above all, it’s about empowering the leader to be the best they can be. But no one can be a great leader if they’re still grappling with the fundamentals - and that's where you, the Practitioner, come in.
