Leader Development: Leadership Self-Awareness

Leader development is currently the number one issue or challenge for corporations, according to a recent survey by the Institute for Corporate Productivity. Given the challenging economy, businesses need emotionally intelligent, skilled, talented leaders more than ever. Developing your leaders internally ensures that the next generation of leaders will know your culture and will have “institutional knowledge” along with new capabilities.

In addition to business knowledge and technical skills, new leaders must develop self-awareness and objectively honest self-assessment.  Research shows that the most successful leaders see themselves the same way that others see them – they know their own strengths and weaknesses as well as their observers do. And the least successful managers are the least self-aware.  In The Leadership Challenge, Kouzes and Posner claim that "ultimately, leadership development is a process of self-development.  The quest for leadership is first an inner quest to discover who you are."

Developing a “deep bench” of straightforward leaders helps you achieve important benefits:

• People selected for leadership positions who can be successful in a sustained way
• More versatile and capable leaders for the future
• Leadership styles in sync with your corporate values and culture
• Increased employee engagement as a result of leaders that people want to follow

Leader Development Training highlights:

• What makes some people successful leaders while others derail
• What it takes to be a successful leader in your Company
• Analyze your strengths and weaknesses as a leader: Your InnerView 360^™ feedback
• Know yourself: your Myers-Briggs personality type or DiSC style and implications for your leadership style
• Situational leadership styles: one size doesn’t fit all – how to flex
• Why command-and-control leadership no longer works, and why facilitative leadership does
• Your decision style: analyzing your results from the Decision Style Indicator
• How to be a collaborative leader
• How to be a facilitative leader
• How to use power, authority, and influence effectively: Your results on the Power Base Inventory
• How to win hearts and minds
• Growing as a leader: your individual development plan; working with a mentor; taking charge of your own career

Leader Development Methodology

Participants in AHA's Leader Development course gain self-awareness through multiple sources of feedback: InnerView 360™ survey, MBTI or DiSC surveys, situational leadership preference, Decision Style Inventory, Power Base Inventory or others such as the Influence Style Inventory, TKI Conflict Survey, Stress Resiliency Profile,  Participants also meet with their supervisor for an in-depth analysis of strengths and development needs.  Customized exercises and case studies provide multiple opportunities for processing the feedback and for practical application of insights. Participants create a detailed individual development plan.

Leader Development Customized Solutions

To ensure that training is not just an “event,” but instead produces enduring results, we customize Leader Development to fit your unique situation, business strategy, culture, and people.  After discussion with you and other experts within your organization, we select the emphasis, specific skills to be developed, key learning points, exercises, and case studies for practice to create a solution tailored just for you.

Leader Development Applications

The following are some of the ways our clients have used custom versions of Leader Development:

• To build a “deep bench” of leaders for current and future needs
• To foster self-awareness in order to broaden the skills of all, even experienced leaders
• To change the culture of the organization by changing leadership styles
• To help good managers become great leaders

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