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Leadership Development Services
Leadingwell Associates provides a wide variety of leadership development experiences, always specially tailored to the needs of the clients. The emphasis is always on practical approaches and techniques. Although a theoretical and research based reference is provided, the much of the development programs or process are experiential.
Leadingwell has provided workshops for community leadership organizations, for business groups, for diverse community groups, and for both small and large corporate groups. The focus is always on the practice of effective leadership. Some care is taken to distinguish between effective practices of management, on the one hand, and effective practices of leadership, on the other. This distinction may be best understood by the phrase: lead the people, manage the process.
Because of the focus on "leading the people," the emphasis in these leadership development experiences have typically included the following:- Values and integrity
- Visionary leadership
- Servant leadership and empowerment
- Consensus building
Typical assignments have included:
- Teach diverse community leaders effective collaborative skills for bringing diverse people together -- as part of an annual community leadership program
- Enhance the leadership practices of a company "diversity group" -- to help them "accelerate" their management and leadership career in the company
- Help a new supervisor's group by making them aware of and giving them techniques for the "soft skills" of leadership
- Develop and deliver a short course for seminarians in practical leadership techniques for being effective in leading staff and volunteers in a parish community
Team Enhancement Services
Leadingwell Associates has been involved over the years in helping a wide variety of work teams become more effective. This effort in enhancing the functioning of working teams has been applied for corporate departments, cross functional work teams in businesses, multiple company work teams in engineering and construction projects, and community committees and task forces.
Occasionally, Leadingwell is asked to be an ongoing support for and coach to a working team. Leadingwell has been the team building consultant for some major engineering and construction projects, involved as a coach and consultant to the multiple company work teams from the inception of the multiyear project until its completion.
In other instances, Leadingwell has performed a one-time function, helping a work team resolve conflicts or enhance performance and teamwork. Over the years, Leadingwell supported a number of companies and departments within companies, serving as ongoing team consultant, and typically holding a team-building workshop once or twice a year.
Typical assignments have included:
- Create a series of team experiences during the three years of a complex construction project. All experiences would involve representatives of the project architect, the engineers, the construction manager, the building contractor, and building subcontractors.
- Create a team building workshop for a work team which is experiencing internal conflict because of growth and many new team members.
- Create and lead a process throughout a company to discern, declare, and measure performance against core values.
Leadership Team Collaboration Services
Frequently, Leadingwell Associates is asked to be the process designer and facilitator of a process to create a collaborative outcome for a leadership group or a group of broader constituents. These applications have been wide and diverse over the years. These have typically led to the leadership group establishing their mission, vision, or direction.
Typically, Leadingwell is involved in designing an overall process which includes specific off-site meetings in a retreat setting. This overall process often includes some form of a survey in advance of the leadership group coming together. Also typically, Leadingwell Associates is involved in advising on follow-up actions, frequently leading some of the follow-up efforts.
Although much of Leadingwell's work focuses on policy and direction, the firm is also invited at times to help a leadership team reach consensus on a difficult and thorny matter. Sometimes, Leadingwell has been asked to help partners in a firm collaborate better together, and especially to agree upon future direction and keys strategies to pursue that direction. Although sometimes this mediation is in a broader group, in has, at times, been directly interpersonal mediation between two leaders.
Typical assignments have included:
- Design and facilitate the annual board retreat for a United Way agency to allow the board and senior staff to establish the next five-year vision and plan
- Design and facilitate a multi-stakeholder process for a large church to collaboratively set goals and the long-range plan for the very first time
- Design and facilitate a board process for the merger of two independent governing boards, brought together by combining a new high school with an existing middle school
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