Building a platform to enhance leadership behaviors and cohesion is key to facilitating leadership development. This has to be done while addressing other key organizational opportunities. A program that consists of leadership team meetings, topic-centered workshops, individual coaching, upward feedback, and applied-learning projects have worked with our clients.

We have designed comprehensive approaches to meeting leadership development goals. The approach includes a. identification of desired outcomes, b. working on interpersonal relationships, and c. the formal development program. Through participation in the leadership development program, leaders acquire, develop, and model to their direct reports, the leadership behaviors at three levels:

Individual Level— Leaders develop individual behaviors through feedback, coaching, and workshop sessions.

Team Level— Leaders apply individual learning to their relationships and interactions with direct reports. Over time, the embodiment of leadership behaviors in team settings shifts organizational culture. There is greater interpersonal cohesiveness.

Organizational level— Leaders and their teams apply to learn to actual business projects in a crossfunctional setting. Over time, the embodiment of leadership behaviors in work processes shifts organizational culture. There is greater cross-functional cohesiveness.

 

Structurally, the program revolves around workshops. It presents leadership themes for each cycle. Leaders utilize sessions with our coaches to catalyze learning from feedback and workshops. Upward feedback is the foundation of this leadership development approach. In addition, leaders meet with their direct reports and gain additional feedback on the topic for that cycle. The practical application thereafter is handheld for a cycle, until it becomes a part of the culture.

In these programs, typical results are:

 

We have also found that internal facilitators can utilize the same coaching and workshop methodology. This makes this initiative more affordable and available to the larger managerial teams.