The market is full of leadership books and development programmes already, so why create another one? I hear lots of leaders reference courses they’ve been on and books they’ve read, which tells me there’s a real thirst for development. However, not all books and programmes are created equal, and they all address different needs so it can be confusing.
Leadership development needs will alter based on our knowledge, skills and experience, and can start from base level understanding and certification through to executive coaching, and a wide range in between. It’s no wonder that companies and individuals are therefore unsure where to invest.
My own experience of attending leadership training has been that it’s been a welcome break from the office, or an unnecessary distraction I didn’t feel I had time for. Typically, I’d gain one or two things from the experience, then when it was over I’d put the folder in a drawer somewhere and it would soon be forgotten. Most of it wasn’t applicable to me, or I already had the knowledge or skills. The courses were generic, and I find the same with most leadership books. I’ll get one or two insights, and if it’s a good one it’ll be a helpful reminder of things I already knew and might motivate me or inspire me short term. I guess the fact that we keep reading them tells us that we’re all searching for something, but in my opinion we’re often looking in the wrong places.
In truth, we know most of the theory and have most of the skills already. We wouldn’t be in leadership roles otherwise. The real question is how are we applying the knowledge and skills? We know all this stuff, so what’s stopping us consistently applying it? Do we even realise that something is getting in our way? How are our behaviours and approaches impacting our teams or our own effectiveness?
My belief is that we won’t understand our own effectiveness by reading a book or following a generic, knowledge sharing programme. It starts with us.
We need knowledge and skills to be effective leaders, but first of all we need to understand ourselves. What strengths can we make the most of? What are our blind spots? How do we prioritise and maintain focus? What are our vision and values? What support do we need? What are we going to commit to?
Unless we first look at our own experiences, behaviours, values and beliefs, we will never understand our decision making, how we prioritise what’s most important, or how we build relationships with other. And this means looking at our WHOLE lives. Too many people try to separate work and personal life, but we’re the same person even if we may behave differently in different contexts. A book can’t tell you who you are, what impacts you or what’s important to you, it’s too personal.
Programme Inception
All the leaders I have known and worked with work incredibly hard, but often they’ve lost their way or are just busy doing or telling rather than really leading. It was the same for me at times. It’s easy to be overwhelmed and reactive rather than really being effective and focused given the sheer volume of work. I wanted to really help leaders with this, and for the last year I’ve been running leadership development programmes for large organisations using a coaching approach that focuses on the real issues facing the participants.
I have to say that I’ve loved it!
It’s amazing to be part of their journey, and because the learning is centered around the circumstances of each participant you can really see that the changes will be transformational. The participants own the learning and are invested in making the actions happen because it’s about them, and it feels truly rewarding to play a part.
I was really enthused about spreading the potential of the programme and make an even bigger difference, and around that time I met Andrew Coates, a fellow leadership coach who shared a similar set of values and who was keen to support leaders with the real issues they were facing.
We had both had conversations with business leaders and realised that for many individuals and small businesses there was a real appetite for developing leaders, but that most couldn’t afford to send individuals or multiple leaders away for several days on a residential programme. We needed to find a way to deliver the programmes in a way that would deliver all of the benefits while minimising the short-term impact of leaders being out of the business.
From there Your Leadership : Your Future was born. It’s taken a lot of passion, time and effort to speak to leaders about their needs, taking the essence of the programmes which run so successfully for larger businesses and delivering them in a way that still fulfils the needs of the individual leader and smaller business. We are really proud of what we’ve put together and based on the feedback we’ve had to date we really believe it will make a huge difference for every participant who joins us.
Find Out More
The details of the Your Leadership : Your Future leadership development programme and how it can help you or your business, or to reserve a place on one of our upcoming programmes, please follow this link:
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