2022 Leadership for Directors

• Leadership for Directors Course Overview

  Leadership is about inspiring and motivating groups of people to perform at their peak. We all know that team performance can often be improved or made worse simply by changing the team leader. Good leadership encourages a better outcome from the group, than they would otherwise produce.

  Good Leadership creates a sense of purpose and belonging amongst the group. Everybody knows what the overall organisation purpose is and where they fit in. Team work is promoted and respected, alongside individual talent. All the team members strive for the success of the organisation, and their own particular team, as well as their personal success. Nobody wants to let anybody else down and everyone is client/customer focussed.

  It is clear that good leadership is invaluable to any organisation. It increases sustainable profits, helps to motivate and retain good people, as well as increasing customer satisfaction and retention. Everybody wins and the workplace generally becomes a much happier and more successful business environment.

  To ensure that the Leaders attending this training course will get the maximum possible benefit from their time and that the discussions will be at their most effective; the delegate numbers are limited to a maximum of 6 for both the in person courses and the live online courses.

  However, for internal single company courses, if requested to do so, we would be prepared to accommodate more attendees.

• Leadership for Directors Course Content

  We will be exploring the implications, responsibilities, challenges and opportunities for leaders; as well as the main styles and attributes of good leadership. The day will be based on best practice examples, drawn from a variety of environments and built around a succession of practical exercises and relevant discussion points. The course looks at a range of leadership ideas from a broad variety of perspectives. In every case we emphasise what will work in practice and any limitations in some of the theoretical approaches. There is a great emphasis on the real world and what generates genuine sustainable success.

  What is Leadership all about?
  • A general overview of some of the crucial aspects of leadership.
  • Why do we need leaders?
  • Internal and external leadership

  Does leadership make a difference?
  • Are leaders born or made?
  • Is it mainly the qualities of leadership or the activities of leadership that are important?
  • What is the first task of a leader?
  • Setting directions and how to proceed.
  • Leadership and change

  Three Areas of Leadership:
  • Technical, Administrative, People
  • People responsibilities include?
  • Management versus leadership
  • Manage the people not the task

  Leadership approaches:

  • Situational and functional requirements
  • What do good leaders do?
  • What do they have in common
  • What do you do?
  • What are the gaps and why do they exist?
  • Could you modify your own leadership style
  • Would modification be desirable
  • The task, the team and the individual – Action Centred and other leadership approaches
  • Top Leadership styles today, with exercises to demonstrate

   

  Personal preferred leadership style?
  • Weaknesses and strengths of your preferred style
  • Suggest a personal action plan to minimise your own leadership weaknesses and to maximise your leadership strengths

  Motivation

  • What does the latest research say?
  • Provide a motivating purpose – enhance the pride of your team in the value and importance of their work
  • Create a sense of belonging to a group.  Consciously use “belonging cues”

   

  Values and signals

  • What should the values of good leaders be and how should they signal these?
  • Should you lead by example?
  • Is collective cabinet responsibility best, or would a presidential style produce better results?
  • What do organisations with widely accepted best of breed Leadership do?
• Leadership for Directors Course Leaders

  The Senior Course Leader is a former Finance Director of Microsoft Inc (until late 2019).  He was in charge of their Seattle based Commercial Windows Application division.  This is a $4bn annual turnover business.  During his last two years with Microsoft, he was one of a small team of directors, designated as the internal Microsoft Leadership Coaching team for their Senior Executive pool.

  He holds an Oxford University M.Sc. and is an accredited international executive coach.  He is an FCA; a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of England and Wales.  He has extensive international experience in Leadership training and coaching with Microsoft.  Within the UK, he has delivered several leadership training courses and high level coaching on behalf of the Institute of Chartered Accountants, the ICAEW.

  The other Course Leader is a Chartered Director; the Institute of Directors Board Director qualification, a Fellow of the Institute of Consulting, a Fellow of the Institute of Directors and a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of England and Wales.  He has over 30 years of successful UK and International experience.  This includes 7 years as the Finance Director and later the Chief Executive of a Plc; as well as 14 years with IBM, Arthur Andersen and KPMG Management Consulting.  He is a former member of the European Management Consultancy Committee of KPMG Management Consulting Europe, the EMCC.

  He currently serves on the Thames Valley Board of the Chartered Management Institute and has completed 12 years on the Chartered Director and the Standards Committees of the Institute of Directors. The Chartered Director Committee of the Institute of Directors developed the current director competency framework for the Institute of Directors.  That competency framework provides the central structure around which the IoD director courses and examinations are focused.

  The course tutors are very well qualified and highly experienced individuals.  Both of these will be involved in the delivery of your workshop.  The Senior Course Leader will assume the lead role.

  Their delivery styles are dynamic, approachable and highly interactive, enabling them to deliver a workshop that you will benefit from and equally importantly, one that you will remember and be able to put into practice in your company.  Their courses are typically assessed as “Excellent” by their delegates.

• "Outstanding" Delegate Comments on the Tutors and other Leadership Courses

  “Excellent overview of leadership skills with practical tools and suggestions for implementation”
  Chief Financial Officer – Bexley Care Trust

  “Very well presented, good content”
  Personnel Manager – Adviser Breakthrough

  “Good trainer – liked the humour”
  MD – NHS Bexley

  “This is my second workshop with this trainer who is absolutely fantastic. He makes the workshop fun, interesting and is very knowledgeable”
  Community Development Manager – London Borough of Camden

  “Excellent, relevant and real.”
  Vice Principal, West Cheshire College

  “Energetic, interesting, captivating, inspiring – very enjoyable day! Thank you.”
  Head of Design

  “Good refresher on leadership, time to think with some excellent anecdotes.”
  Deputy Principal, BHASVIC

• Some Leadership Points to Consider:

  • Most people become leaders with very limited or perhaps no formal leadership training or advice
  • Leadership is not easy; although anyone might do a decent job of steering the ship when the waters are calm; it takes a good leader to handle choppy waters
  • The final 20% of individual work effort is said to be discretionary and therefore requires extra encouragement and motivation from the leadership team
  • Some teams and organisations, undoubtedly perform much better than many others, even when facing apparently similar competitive forces and regulatory procedures, with equally qualified and experienced staff
  • Levels of sickness or absence vary enormously between teams and organisations employing similar people to fulfil the same roles within the same sectors
  • Change is constant; whilst some leaders welcome and embrace change, looking for the new opportunities within it. Others pointlessly fight against it. The tide cannot be held back, no matter how hard you try
  • Some organisations demand blind obedience, often confusing it with real workforce commitment and engagement
  • Some leaders work to the wrong time horizon; chasing ever greater short term success at the expense of real long term sustainable success
  • Some organisations fail to define what success looks like and how they are going to measure it, which makes it very difficult to recognise when they get there, or even when are progressing in the right direction

• Leadership for Directors Course Learning Objectives

  Through exploring several practical leadership exercises, by the end of the workshop delegates will:
  • Have a clear idea of why we need leaders
  • Fully understand the roles and responsibilities of good leaders
  • Recognise and understand the characteristics and attributes of good leaders
  • Have a very good understanding of their own natural leadership style, and its strengths and weaknesses
  • Know and understand the impacts of the main leadership styles
  • Recognise how to adjust their own leadership styles to suit the strengths and weaknesses of their own team members
  • Fully understand the roles and responsibilities of leaders
  • Recognise how to determine the best ways to improve their own performances as leaders and the performances of their teams and how to develop the individuals within those teams
  • Be able to understand the requirements their own style of leadership and how that impacts the performance of their teams
  • Have a clear idea of how to tackle essential matters such as motivation, discipline, communication etc.

• Who Should Attend This Director Leadership Training Course

  This course is ideal for new Leaders, as well as highly experienced Leaders wishing to incorporate best leadership practices within their own leadership style.  This programme is also well suited for newly-appointed senior leaders and for those about to be appointed senior leaders.

  Leadership does not require charismatic natural born leaders, but it is about what the attitudes and behaviours are of our leaders.  Good Leaders are mainly identified by what they “do”, not by their natural skills and characteristics.

  To ensure that the Leaders attending this training course will get the maximum possible benefit from their time and that the discussions will be at their most effective; the delegate numbers are limited to a maximum of 6, for the In Person courses and the Live Online courses.

• In-House Course for Directors and the Leadership Talent Pool

  This training workshop, along with most of our other best practice training workshops, can be delivered as an internal training course at your premises. Even with groups as small as 6 delegates, the course fees per person for internal training workshops can be lower than for open events. The potential savings are even greater, if the travel time and the travel costs of the delegates are included.

  Running training workshops internally is very convenient many of our clients and allows the participants to explore how key issues will impact on them and their organisation. Then as a team they can begin to agree upon development action plans and assign priorities. This approach is favoured by many of our clients as it combines a high quality service with excellent value for money and a highly effective route for senior executive development.

  In-House Courses; Logistics and Fees

• Certificates of Professional Development

  We are accredited by the Institute of Leadership and Management as an approved training centre for Leadership and Management courses.  The logo of the Institute of Leadership and Management along with that of Excellence in Learning will be on the certificates.

  This course is recognised for CPD purposes by most professional institutes and associations including the Institute of Leadership and Management, the Institute of Directors, the Law Society, the CIM, the CMI, the ICAEW, the Institute of Learning and the CIPD. Formal Certificates of Professional Development will be issued to all participants who successfully complete this course.

  These certificates will enable participants to evidence the update of their CPD records. The workshop will consider how to best apply the knowledge gained by the delegates upon their return to the workplace. This element of the programme is designed to maximise the benefits of attending this course.