Leadership Development Training

Here are some issues we find to be true for most of our participants and the organizations from which they come.

1. Much of What a Good Leader Does, You Already Know How To Do.

Humans are the only creatures who have the conscious ability to behave in ways that are clearly not in their own best interests. We repeatedly find that participants are very skilled at succinctly defining what it is that a good leader should be doing. They just don’t do it themselves! What stops them from doing what they know is the right thing to do is called fear. I always find it remarkable that people who carry huge organizational responsibilities for outstanding achievements have such a hard time tackling the fears that debilitate, undermine, and inhibit their leadership potential. We are quite adept at uncovering this “hidden” knowledge and helping to identify and remove barriers to the successful application of these underutilized skills.

2. Leadership is a Difficult Learning Challenge.

Most leadership training on the market today is ineffective, unnecessary, and a waste of both time and money. It is either far too theoretical (wonderful Ivory Tower academic pontification with little real-world application) or way too simplistic (The 10 Keys to Successful Leadership approach that you may have also read in the Reader’s Digest while waiting for your last dental appointment). Organizations continually teach organizational “leaders” content that they already know intellectually, but have never put into constant and sustainable practice. It gets written off to “bad training that did not stick,” only to be repeated again at next year’s off-site by a new leadership “vendor.” If leadership were easy, more people in our society would be exhibiting it. Comfort and ease do not go hand in hand with leadership. It is our opinion that our culture is facing a crisis in leadership. When I ask groups all over the US to name admired leaders I get precious few responses. Our historic sources of leadership role models; parents, clergy, political, military, teachers, business, have all dried up and their downfall chronicled on the evening news. And unfortunately, very few replacements appear upon the horizon. Bottom line: we can help build leaders and we want to be your last leadership and team development “vendor.”

3. Position Power vs. Personal Power.

People wrongly assume that a title and its “responsibility” automatically grant leadership authority. The organization “gives” the individual “position power” when someone new is recruited or promoted from within. The title appearing on their business card, while perhaps impressive, does nothing to magically instill the behaviors necessary to lead anyone anywhere. Quite the opposite generally occurs. Position power builds only compliance-based behavior in followers. Compliance is a set of fear-based behaviors that will never lead to a high performing team. Employees working under a position power leader spend their time “getting by,” “seeking safe orbit,” and “avoiding detection”. The only path to success is to build “personal power” with employees. The bad news, however, is that most people faced with this dilemma begin to “do the wrong thing, only harder.” Building personal power is not difficult per se, but requires vision, passion, risk taking, and leadership. We normally do not see any of these attributes on executive job descriptions. Normally, these executives were promoted or hired based upon past achievements or technical skill sets which are wonderful but have no validity in predicting or guaranteeing success in a new environment. At times I shake my head and wonder if perhaps someone won their job in a raffle. In 25 years of practice, I have never seen leadership naturally transfer from one job assignment to another. It must be created all over again, every time an individual attempts to lead a new group of employees. Leadership, quite like respect, cannot be taken. It can only be given, willingly and without reservation, by employees. Bottom line: we can help to build “personal power” within your organization.

4. Most Employees Do Not Tell Executives the Whole Truth.

The higher you climb in an organization, the further you are from the truths your employees live amongst on a daily basis. Most of the senior executives I have long term coaching relationships with are surprised and disappointed to learn the extent to which employees within their organization will go to shape, spin, or manipulate information to achieve the results they are looking for. Most of the results these employees are looking for have precious to do with your business goals. This is one of the first “early warning” lights on the dashboard we look for and quite often find. Simple fact: the better the leadership, the more frequently the truth gets told. Good executive decisions must be based upon the best, most accurate information available rather than on today’s spin. Leaders get good, accurate, and timely information from employees. Bosses don’t. How about you? Have you had any “surprises” from your team lately?

5. Once I Decide to Lead, Where the Hell Do I Take These People?

Most managers and executives have tried the old motivational talk in an effort to lead their people toward achieving goals. While the employees’ heads may shake in approval and their support may even be voiced, employees usually interpret these messages very differently than they were intended. To them, it sounds something like this, “So, you want me to crawl for miles over broken glass and work my tail off to achieve these new Q4 objectives so that the senior executives can bring home a bigger bonus, shareholders can smile about a few more cents per share, and we can start this madness all over again in Q1? Be still my heart.” Can you imagine what Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech would sound like if written and delivered by the average executive? The truth is, most messages from management are perceived by employees as “more work” when what they are truly looking for from their leaders is a “better life.” This disconnect is played out countless times every day in most organizations. Leadership is about making lives better. The business results that good leaders drive are only a part of that. When you lead people toward a better life, amazing results follow you.

So, you may ask, what does all this have to do with sailboats and sailing? As lifelong educators and sailors, a sailboat is a wonderful teaching analogy. The vessel responds to a myriad of influences and behaves accordingly without hesitation, reservation, fear, manipulation, or judgment. If you will stop and listen, a boat will easily and effortlessly teach. Our on-the-water instructors are skilled in providing just the right combination of hands-on and hands-off to allow the on-the-water experience to be a powerful teaching tool. The analogy’s applicability to organizational and business environs often astounds participants. The opportunity to test their leadership skills against a series of objective-driven simulations and/or tasks that complete the connection back to the work world is afforded to all participants. What we are able to accomplish is:

1. Challenge the individual participant’s beliefs about themselves, their team, and their skills as leaders. In most organizations, a chasm exists between those who are “in-charge” and those who “do the work.” Leadership is the only bridge between these groups and many organizations suffer from washed out or poorly constructed and rickety bridges across this chasm. The first step to building solid leadership bridges is to challenge and change the unconscious, albeit very operational, assumptions we make about those on the other side of the bridge. We accomplish this challenge in the classroom and on-the-water with a series of insightful presentations and objective-driven simulations and tasks that dramatically demonstrate the necessity of powerful leadership and the consequences of living with its absence. Challenging strongly held beliefs, even if they do not serve us well, is strong stuff and also one of our strengths. As any attorney worth their salt knows, never ask a question you do not want the answer to.

2. Introduce a more “reality-based” leadership model to enhance participants’ leadership efforts within their respective organizations. We experientially introduce sound, more effective, leadership and teambuilding strategies. Participants, at a minimum, can revisit, revise and update their overall leadership strategy and tactics. We truly shine brightest when we are given the luxury of more than a few hours with your group. Given additional time, participants are allowed the opportunity of fully sculpting their leadership or teambuilding strategy and leave prepared to tactically implement. There is clearly a reason why Dilbert enjoys such widespread success in the workplace. Far too many people can easily recognize the reality of, and to some degree the futility of, their work lives within the frames of the comic. If there is a cubicle or two in your organization that posts Dilbert cartoons, we need to talk. Now!

3. Create an environment wherein participants may safely experiment with these new behaviors and receive instant and honest feedback. We do this both in our classroom and on our boats. This experiential learning occurs with the help of a facilitator, a boat, the boat’s crew, and Mother Nature, mixed with a series of objective-driven simulations and tasks. Mother Nature, the boat, and our facilitators provide immediate feedback on the efforts of the leader and the team against their goals. None of them are afraid to dramatically relay this feedback. Participants also experience the reality of interdependency through simulations and tasks with one another, other teams, and across their respective organizations.

4. Commit to allowing participants to experiment with new leadership behaviors based upon all they have learned throughout the day. We can aid participants to find the courage necessary to move from “manager” to leader. In the long run, it will not matter how well any participant performs while in the session. What does matter is the level of commitment they walk back onto the dock with. An idea without commitment is a dream. A powerful idea with solid commitment is a force to be reckoned with.

5. Follow-up is accomplished by providing our resources to any participant, team, or organization who may desire such. We know that once participants return to their work place, the organization’s cultural antibodies will respond by attacking ferociously. We work with clients to guarantee the new seeds of leadership and team development learned are not planted in barren, windswept soil. Leadership and team development are processes, not a singular event. Our capacity to assist an organization with sustainable advances in leadership and team development grows when we can work with the organization over an extended period of time.

To sum this up, we know leadership. We know how to get people to think differently about leadership. We provide them with a multi-sensory, experiential, and visceral learning experience that consistently receives high marks. At a minimum, every participant will take away some good ideas. Commonly, the vast majority of the participants leave excited, challenged, committed to new approaches, possessing some new tools and models, and quite often wanting more.