Leadership Development
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
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