One of the main challenges in designing leadership
training
courses (especially short ones) is to create enough opportunities for
each individual to have several turns as leader. Courses for developing
teamwork skills are more straightforward because participants are
always part of the team, but on leadership courses each individual only
experiences leadership when it is their turn to be leader. And on short
courses, participants may only have one experience of leadership.
• So what can be done to increase the proportion
of the time in which each individual is a leader?
• And what can be done to increase the number of
times that each individual can experience leadership within a course?
Before listing my ten tips in answer to
these questions, let me spell out two key reasons why these issues are
so important.
- Limited opportunities for leadership
Having only one opportunity for leadership for each
participant on a leadership training programme is putting all your eggs
in one basket - it is high risk. It is high risk for the participant
because there is so much at stake. They will receive feedback from
their peers based on this one opportunity to be a leader. Worse still,
their one and only opportunity to lead may not be very successful and
their behaviour may not be very typical. This will produce feedback
that is negative, superficial or irrelevant. Also the quality of
feedback from peers is unlikely to be as good in the first half of the
course as it is in the second half. Those who lead first may get a poor
deal. If each individual gets only one opportunity for leadership, it
is high risk for the course provider too. It is a bit hit and miss
whether that one single opportunity brings out anything like the true
leadership potential of each participant. In such circumstances it is
difficult for the course provider to fulfil the reasonable expectations
of clients and participants.
- A weak model of experiential learning
Witnessing others being leaders is not experiential
learning. Only by being a leader can participants learn from the
experience of being a leader. Clearly you can learn about leadership by
watching others lead, but that is not learning by experience. Watching
others lead has some merits but is a less effective learning model for
developing leadership skills.
Here are some design strategies to help you maximise
leadership opportunities in your training programmes. The calculations
below assume that the strategy being described is sustained for a whole
programme. This is not a recommended course of action - it is simply an
easy way of illustrating potential time savings. The best course
designs will have a mix of a number of different strategies. Consider
each of these ten possibilities:
- Dividing
a group into two subgroups doubles the
number of
opportunities for leadership. This has the extra advantage of creating
the possibility for comparing how different leaders tackle similar
tasks. Also feedback to leaders takes less time in smaller groups.
- Using
co-leaders rather than solo leaders also
doubles the
number of opportunities for leadership. In some cases this will more
closely mirror how leadership actually happens in the workplace.
- Using
three leaders for each project triples the
number of
leadership opportunities. This can also be a good way for participants
to experiment with different leadership models if each leader takes on
a specific leadership role. For example, if using Adair's Action
Centred Leadership Model, each leader can pay attention to one of the
three elements of the model: task, team or individuals. In a similar
way, having different leaders for the beginning, middle and end of a
project allows participants to experiment with different leadership
styles within the Situational Leadership model. Particular leadership
styles may be more suited to different stages of a project.
- Working
in pairs creates five times more
opportunities for
leadership in a group of ten. This may also mirror how leadership is
performed in the workplace - through one to one meetings, phone
conversations etc. Paired exercises in which one person is blindfolded,
or in which pairs are not in visual contact, can be used to generate a
useful range of leadership challenges and experiences.
- Take
it in turns to lead reviews. On programmes where there is
a 50/50 split between
activity
time and review time, you can double the opportunities for leadership
if people take it in turns to lead reviews. It often turns out that
review discussions mirror the workplace environment more closely than
do the activities which are being reviewed. And many meetings at work
have 'reviewing' items on the agenda anyway. Reviews provide a golden
opportunity for some very relevant leadership experience! (You then
need to review the review, but even this can be led by a participant.)
- Reviewing
experiences of leadership that happened
prior to
the course. The benefit here is that you do not need
course time to
provide leadership experiences - so it saves approximately 50% of the
time (if the course typically has a 50/50 split between activity and
review). Other group members may not have witnessed these examples of
leadership, but what matters most is that these examples are real
experiences of leadership - and they might be much more real and
significant than the leadership experiences that happen within a
training course. The key to this strategy is adopting a suitable
reviewing method. Further timesaving can be achieved by reviewing in
subgroups or pairs.
- Using
mini-leadership projects of less than five
minutes.
In less than an hour each member of the group can experience a whole
group leadership role. My favourite exercise using this strategy
requires each person to use the whole group in a demonstration of what
they each mean by good teamwork. How they each approach this task
reveals a lot in a short time about their leadership style as well
about their understanding of teamwork. This exercise works best if it
is presented as an exercise about teamwork.
- Creating
a leadership challenge in which each
individual
has the opportunity to step up and try out a different leadership
strategy. I have only used this strategy as a role play exercise, but
it could be used in real situations too. As a role play exercise, pairs
take it in turns to be the rule-breaking worker and the rule-enforcing
manager. Workers should allow managers a 50/50 chance of being
successful.
- Exploring
the definition of leadership in a way that
makes
people realise that everything they do and say in a group influences
others whether or not they are an assigned leader. Priming a group in
this way means that everyone is continually on the lookout for examples
of leadership within the group. This creates a richer environment for
learning about leadership and makes people aware of both assigned and
informal leadership.
- Making
links between leadership and the transfer of
learning. In order to transfer learning from any training
course it
often requires the learner to take a lead to make things happen. This
is doubly true if they are transferring learning about themselves as
leaders. By framing the transfer of learning as a leadership exercise
(thus making it leadership about leadership) you are doubling the value
of the transfer process and increasing the chances that it will happen.
Instead of designing a programme in a way that provides
just
one opportunity per person for leading a team, you can now design a
programme of the same duration that will provide at least three
leadership experiences per person. On their first go at leadership,
participants may learn how they come across as a leader. On their
second go, they can try something different. On their third go, they
can practise something they want to use back in the workplace.
A well designed combination of strategies will create
more and
better opportunities for learning to lead. Of even greater significance
is the fact that many of the strategies outlined above have a much
closer resemblance to what leadership is actually like back in the
workplace. This increases the relevance of the leadership training
exercises while also improving the chances that what is learned about
leadership is successfully transferred and implemented.
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