Leadership
Leadership
AlexanderHancock
Associates works with your organization in many ways to assess
your leaders' strengths and priorities for development, and to
plan developmental strategies.
1. Leadership Assessment and Development Planning
This process consists of 3 steps:
1) Assess leaders using a multi-rater questionnaire, with the
option of customizing it for your organization.
2) Facilitate the process of understanding this "360
degree" feedback and creating an individual development
plan. At the executive level, this facilitation is done by a
one-on-one developmental discussion. At lower levels, the
feedback and developmental planning is usually done in small
groups (usually 8-10) or as part of a leadership training
course.
3) Provide the organization with group reports to use as a
needs assessment for planning training and development
opportunities. Option: We can work with your organization to
create a compendium of developmental resources including
on-the-job developmental strategies and training and
educational opportunities.
2. Leadership Development Training
Provide customized leadership development training programs.
3. Leadership Development Consulting
Create and implement development
strategies to ensure an ongoing process and follow-up
Work with you to incorporate a customized multi-rater section
into your performance management system to address the
developmental and behavioral side of performance management.
Why Leadership
Assessment?
Are leaders born
or made? The experts don't agree on the answer to that
question. But they do agree that leadership is a set of
learnable experiences and that exceptional leaders are
learners. 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."
Most people do not see themselves as others see them. All of
us have some blind spots that can hinder our ability as
leaders. Development requires continuous probing of the blind
spots, and for that we need the help of others. Yet while
others see both the leader's strengths and problem behaviors,
they seldom have the skills, tact, courage, or opportunity to
constructively bring this information to the leader's
attention.
Traditionally, only the direct supervisor gave this kind of
feedback. But in today's organizations, people are working
across departmental and functional boundaries, people have
customers both inside and outside the organization, and often
work more closely with teams than with their supervisors. The
view from above may be limited, and certainly will be
different from the perspectives of peers, teammates,
customers, and subordinates. Yet these are the people who most
often are affected by the leader's performance.
AlexanderHancock Associates uses sophisticated computer tools
and experienced consultants to help you collect, analyze, and
present this powerful feedback in a way that is meaningful and
useful to the leader, to his/her supervisor, and to the
organization -- at a reasonable cost.
Benefits
-
Leaders at all
levels in the organization can receive confidential,
honest feedback about their leadership behaviors, both
strengths and areas needing improvement. They will be
guided to use this information to build on their strengths
and to plan specific ways to improve in critically
important areas. Both the individual and the organization
benefits from this improvement.
-
Managers (of
leaders assessed) can review summaries of their
subordinates' results, and conduct developmental planning
discussions with them to ensure that subordinates get the
support they need to carry out their development plans.
-
The
organization can use group reports to identify training
and development needs and appropriately target resources
to address most critical needs.
-
Teams can use
group reports for teambuilding, improving team
interactions and results.
How We Customize
the Assessment to Your Organization
If you want the
assessment to address leadership competencies that are
specific to your organization, some or all of the questions in
the survey can be designed to measure these specific
behaviors. In each step, AlexanderHancock works closely with
your organization to ensure the result fits your needs and
expectations.
1. Measure what is important to your organization.
We work with you to analyze your organization's strategic
thrust, market environment, and values. Then we will identify
those categories of leadership behaviors which are important
to your organization's success as defined by these critical
factors. This ensures that you measure only significant
behavior.
2. Ensure that measurement items are stated correctly.
A set of leadership behavior assessment items is created
based on the above factors, ensuring that each item is
properly written to describe a behavior which can be observed
by others (not traits), is clear and understandable, free of
bias, and is stated so as to give unambiguous results.
3. Customize
for divisions, departments, teams as needed.
You may select some items for the whole organization, some
for a specific group, and even some for specific individuals.
4. Select base of comparison.
You can create group norms for the entire organization, or
for a specific part of the organization. Thus, you can compare
individual performance to the group norm on every item, as
well as every category.
5. Identify competencies and behaviors perceived to be most
important to success in the job.
In addition to measuring individual performance, you have the
option of also collecting data about perceptions of the
importance of that behavior to success in the job. Any item
receiving a high importance rating and a low performance
rating is a priority for improvement
6. Choose the rating scale.
You can choose either a 5-point or a 10-point scale; and
either frequency ratings or degree ratings. (For comparisons,
all organizational reports should use the same scale.)
How Leadership
Assessment and Development Planning Works
1. Select
customization options.
2. Identify leaders to be assessed; leaders identify
raters.
After leaders to be assessed are notified, they receive
information about selecting raters. Raters should include
their immediate supervisor, several peers, all subordinates,
and themselves (for a maximum total of 10).
3. Present and explain the process to leaders and raters.
AlexanderHancock consultants explain to leaders and to
their raters how the process will work, what the reports will
show, and how reports will be used. We recommend this be done
in group presentations. However, if distances make this
impractical, we will send written explanations along with the
materials.
4. Complete assessments and produce reports.
All raters are provided with a floppy disk on which to
complete the questionnaire. No paper and pencils are needed.
Disks are returned to AlexanderHancock Associates for scoring.
Complete confidentiality is ensured. Reports are produced by
AlexanderHancock Associates.
5. Provide feedback and facilitate developmental planning.
AlexanderHancock Associates consultants meet with assessed
executives in a 2-hour one-on-one session to review the
feedback. The consultants meet with assessed middle and
first-line managers in small groups of 8-10 for a 3-hour
session to review the feedback. Feedback can also be provided
in the context of a Leadership Development Training Session.
In this discussion the following will be accomplished:
-
understand the
ratings and the verbal comments supporting them
-
constructively
manage the psychological reactions to any negative or
disappointing feedback
-
identify ways
to capitalize on and maximize strengths
-
plan specific
steps to develop in areas needing improvement
-
plan how to
summarize information and discuss with direct supervisor
-
plan how to
communicate appreciation to those providing feedback and
respond to their concerns
AlexanderHancock
Associates can develop leader training based on your
organization's strategic competencies and strategic
directions. Some possible topics include:
-
how to think,
act, plan and manage from a strategic and systems
perspective
-
innovative and
creative problem solving
-
business
acumen
-
critical
analysis
-
how to use
flexible leadership styles
-
how to build
and lead a team
Charting the
Course: a Model for Leadership
The following
is one example of a 2-day leadership development workshop with
feedback
You never
conquer the mountain. You only conquer yourself.
- Jim Whittaker, first American to climb Mount Everest.
This workshop is
designed to provide managers in your organization with a
process for developing as leaders. As they grow in leadership
skills, practices, and traits, they will be more effective in
helping your organization meet the "permanent
whitewater" challenges of today and tomorrow.
Developing leadership in your company is an investment with a
significant return. In these troubled times, skilled leaders
will provide the competitive advantage for successful
organizations. This training can help your people become
inspiring leaders, as well as more effective managers for the
challenging days ahead.
Training Objectives
Participants in this workshop will:
-
become more
aware of what the company needs from them as leaders, now
and in the future
-
gain
self-awareness through feedback about their strengths and
weaknesses as leaders
-
learn the
characteristics and practices of successful leaders as
identified in studies of American business and industry
and compare themselves against those characteristics
-
identify
improvement needs and develop personal action plans for
addressing needs
-
be able to use
leadership processes to produce constructive change,
flexibility to adapt to new conditions, openness to
innovation, opportunities for competitive advantage
-
be able to
balance the natural tensions between these processes in
their own work life, and know how to select appropriate
strategies
Training Design
This two-day
workshop is designed to have high impact on the way managers
think and act. It includes intensive feedback on important
leadership/management skills and leadership styles. In each
case, managers will not only gain deeper insights from the
feedback, but will apply it directly to real-life situations
they are currently facing on the job. Individual and small
group exercises will provide numerous opportunities for
learning and growth. Each participant will create an
individual development plan.
Pre-workshop: Three instruments will be used to provide
important data for leadership development. All instruments
will be scored and reports created for each participant.
-
Leadership
Assessment: a 360 degree study designed to provide you
with feedback from your manager, your peers, and your
subordinates regarding a set of important
leadership/management skills.
-
Myers
Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI): the well-known indicator
of type that provides a common language and understanding
of self and others, and provides insight into leadership
styles.
-
FIRO-B: (Fundamental
Interpersonal Relations Orientation), a measure of a
person's typical behavior in relation to others, thus
providing essential insight for leaders [or other survey
tool].
Topic Outline
The following is a
topic outline for this session. Elements may be modified to
meet specific needs of managers in your organization:
-
What is
"leadership" and why is it so important?
-
Where is this
company headed, and what kind of leadership does it need?
-
What are
successful leaders like?
-
Self-awareness:
the foundation of leadership development
-
Understanding
your personality by profile and leadership style: The
Myers Briggs Type Indicator
-
Seeing
yourself as others see you: Leadership Assessment Feedback
-
Leadership and
Interpersonal Relations: the FIRO-B
-
How to
interpret and apply your feedback
-
Adapting your
leadership style
-
Your personal
development plan
Here is a PowerPoint
presentation to help you understand the techniques taught
in Leadership Development training. You may view it or
download it.
(If you have problems with
download, right click, choose "save target as")
If you do not
have PowerPoint on your machine you can download a free
viewer at:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/officeupdate/CD010225971033.aspx
|
