Course Overview
Being a good leader as well as a good manager demands a complex set of skills and attributes - but outstanding leaders recognise that combining the necessary skills with their own unique strengths is vital if they are to maximise the performance of their business. This course provides you with an unparalleled opportunity to establish a sound foundation in the critical leadership skills necessary for today's managers, and enable you to integrate these vital skills into your own personal leadership style.
Although gender is just one of many factors which influence the type of challenges each manager faces, and the way in which each individual will overcome those challenges, almost all senior women managers find themselves working in a male-dominated environment. Attending this course will not only give you effective strategies to help you reinforce your leadership role, but will also provide solutions to the particular challenges faced by female leaders. Furthermore, you will be able to share experiences with like-minded female professionals from across a range of industries, providing you with a valuable opportunity to network and a useful resource both today and in your future career development.
Audience
This course has been specifically designed to meet the needs of experienced women managers and will provide you with new techniques and alternative approaches to help strengthen your skills in the art of leadership. Previous courses have attracted senior and middle managers from range of functional areas including the following roles: Communications Director, Finance and Operations Manager,Director, Senior Fund Manager, Executive Director,Head of Operations, Principal Engineer, Politics and Planning Co-ordinator and Group Tax Manager from the following companies: SmithKline Beecham,GATX Asset Residual Management, BMW GB Ltd, Cornhill Insurance,United Distillers & Vintners,Credit Suisse First Boston, Railtrack, BG Group Plc, HM Treasury, Halifax,Allergan, & Warburg Dillon Rea
Skills Gained
THIS COURSE WILL ENABLE YOU TO:
- Discover the leadership and management style which is right for you
- Maximise the results you achieve with and through others
- Increase your professional effectiveness
- Communicate your expectations clearly and accurately
- Build and maintain a motivated and committed team
- Promote productive and positive working relationships
- Achieve your professional objectives
- Acquire powerful influencing skills and build effective networks
Course Outline
DISCOVERING THE LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT STYLE WHICH IS RIGHT FOR YOU
- Identifying the strengths and weaknesses of the various leadership styles
- What can you learn from traditional leadership models?
- Developing your own personal leadership style
- Bringing your own, unique qualities to the role: introducing a 3 dimensional model of leadership
- Other relevant leadership models
Group exercise: Getting to grips with leadership: leading and observing leaders in action Group discussion
HARMONISING YOUR INDIVIDUAL, TEAM AND ORGANISATIONAL GOALS
- Examining five dysfunctional organisations created by their leaders
- The dramatic organisation
- The depressive organisation
- The suspicious organisation
- The compulsive organisation
- The detached organisation
Discussion session: Understanding & influencing the political structure and dynamics of your organisation
DEVELOPING INFLUENCE AND PERSONAL POWER AS A LEADER
- Why the power to influence is central to any human endeavour
- Evaluating how different types of power are used in different ways to influence other people's actions
- Using your personal power to channel the energies of your colleagues
- Examining how you can use different types of authority in management to exert your influence
- Drawing on your personal influencing skills rather than your structural authority
Leadership activity session: The airline Group feedback session
MAXIMISING THE RESULTS YOU ACHIEVE WITH AND THROUGH OTHERS
- What makes an admirable leader?
- Determining your personal and professional priorities
- Developing your personal resources to increase your ability to exert power and effect change
Video: The Glass Ceiling Breakers -learning from the examples of successful female leadersg your personal image
INCREASING YOUR PERSONAL EFFECTIVENESS
- Overcoming your personal barriers to power and influence
- Building your self-esteem as a leader
- Setting targets and rewards
- Determining appropriate problem-solving strategies
- Showing appreciation to your staff
- Expressing your disapproval and confronting unacceptable behaviour - without alienating others
- Dealing with criticism
- Communicating your requests and deflecting excuses
- Ensuring your body language reinforces - not undermines - your messages
- Input and individual exercises
SEVEN STEPS TO SUCCESSFUL NEGOTIATIONS
- Identifying what makes a great negotiator
- Making your negotiations work for you
- Outlining an effective negotiation structure
- Key negotiating techniques
- Controlling the negotiation whilst maintaining a constructive relationship
- Securing a win-win outcome
Group exercise: IIR Towers: Applying practical negotiating techniques
BECOMING A GREAT LEADER
- Identifying common behaviours of successful leaders
- Seven important approaches you can adopt to help steer yourself towards "greatness"
COMMUNICATING YOUR EXPECTATIONS TO YOUR TEAM
- Seven characteristics of successful teams
- Understanding and influencing the processes of team development
- Six steps to developing motivated and committed team members
- Effective team rules
- Achieving a straightforward and productive dialogue
- Applying your personal qualities to strengthen your communications
Group exercise: Testing your communication skills with your team
DECISION MAKING FOR LEADERS
- Evaluating when and why you should use alternative decision-making methods: authority rule, minority, majority, consensus and unanimous consent
- Video and discussion: Excellence in leadership
- Effectively leading meetings
Questionnaire: Rate your meeting skills Activity: Meetings
BEING A WINNER AT WORK
- Developing a winning attitude
- Empowering beliefs vs disempowering beliefs
Activity: Creating a vision for your team
YOUR PERSONAL ACTION PLAN
Setting personal goals to stretch your capabilities translating what you have learnt back to the workplace
