About
About
About
Coaching Consulting Research Journalism
Remember, there are only two days that nothing can be done: one is called yesterday and the other is called tomorrow.
Dalai Lama
Remember, there are only two days that nothing can be done: one is called yesterday and the other is called tomorrow.
Dalai Lama
Leadership development
A ship in a port is safe but it's not what ships are built for.
Grace Hopper
Leaders influence organisations with their personalities. Being aware of its essence, like the essence of the individual scent, is crucial for the success of the leader, their teams, and the effectiveness of the whole organisation. I welcome you to use my long-term experience in people & leadership development, applied psychological expertise and exceptional knowledge of human nature in order to gain deep self-awareness, enhance your leadership presence, and to partner with me in bringing your leadership to the next level or develop newly appointed leaders. In customising leadership development processes, I use best practices, latest scientific research and Gestalt approach, which is a powerful methodology in creating self- and group awareness, strengthening presence and achieving sustainable change in individuals and organisations. It is based on the holistic and relational view on people and their environment, uses dialogue and equal relationship in it, and aims at taking full ownership for the actions and the future.
Your holistic leadership development process would usually last from 6 months to one year and include:
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Learning the business and its current challenges and meeting participants where they need to be met
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Setting up the goals and identifying the crucial competencies to be developed or leveraged
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Identifying a target group and scheduling a timeline
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Unique workshop blocks with insightful exercises including embodiment practices
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In-depth review of individual assessment results followed by extensive coaching of each participant
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Review after 6 months with post-assessments and feedback
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Setting up follow-up actions and their time frame
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Final assessment and feedback taking place usually after one year after the start of the process
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Optional confidential spousal coaching throughout the process: providing the spouses of the leaders with life coaching as a part of the corporate leadership development process, and addressing the need of professional assistance with personal issues, expat assignments, dual careers, and work-life balance. It helps leaders in increasing their holistic well-being, reducing distractions, and leverage effectiveness and motivation at work.
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If a mental health issue will come up throughout the process, I am psychologically trained and either will be able to address it and/or refer the person to a related professional.
Important considerations for successful leadership development based on a study conducted by McKinsey & Company:
Considering context: what do we need right now?
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A goal and a few crucial competencies: leadership programme should be connected with a clear vision, stated goals and values of the company, and its current state and what specific behaviours & a few competencies we want to reward: the goals and leadership qualities needed in a turnaround situation are different from the ones needed in a high-growth organization or already a highly collegial, collaborative one.
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Implementation of the successful restructuring and integration: leadership programmes in a decentralised workspace should have focus on the value of relationship building, sharing information, targeted communication and transparency through virtual office sharing systems. Managers may have employees they don't see for months at a time. This challenge means leaders have to be trained and coached to be more purposeful in establishing personal relationships with staff, and the staff with its leader(s).
Reflection from real work:
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Only 10% of learning stays if leadership development is being run as a classical classroom training, ¾ – if learning by doing.
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Every major business project is a leadership development opportunity and vice versa: connect the programme to the real on-the-job project (i.e. implementation of a new organisation or giving each programme’s sub-team a smaller target). Regular and continuous reflection throughout the process is crucial for it's success.
Considering mindsets:
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Our mindset and cultural background have a tremendous impact on the way we behave, reactions we receive and the way we consider things for “good” or “bad”: identifying the deepest, “below the surface” thoughts, feelings, assumptions, and beliefs is the precognition to behavioural change.
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Self-awareness is the most important and most underestimated leadership competency of a good leader: a different behaviour cannot be trained without exploring and being aware of who one really is and how one is impacting people around; as soon as you are deeply aware of who you are, sustainable and authentic change happens.
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Different cultural mindsets have to be discovered in-depth and an awareness of them has to be developed. Cultural transformation only comes with the personal one.
Measure results:
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In order to be successful and deliver results in the long term, leadership development has to be measured: not only collecting participants’ feedback after a workshop, but a behavioural assessment before and several months afterwards.
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Examples of measurements: identifying a “from – to” path for each participant, then showing a “before and after” by a leader on his/her own example, analyzing staff turnover, development of promotions; business impact like average productivity of participant’s team before and after, etc.
Advantages of a customised leadership development process:
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assesses and elevates leadership competency and enhances authentic and inspirational leadership: leadership is contagious – strong and positive leadership spreads to the employees same as weak or lack of it.
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can boost morale, creativity, spark the transfer of good ideas, cultivate in-house talent, increase engagement.
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helps succession planning, makes people feel more engaged, and can transfer good ideas from one section of the company to the whole organisation.
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is a change initiative: if the business is suffering from recession or going through tough times, leadership development interventions support business needs, help re-motivate people, boost camaraderie, and create new challenges that have the potential to stimulate creativity.
Project assignments are being charged at customised package rates.