I know everybody is talking about leadership. Why is leadership development important to me or to my organisation?

When you grow an organisation through mergers and acquisitions, people are placed together almost overnight. It becomes urgent for managers to minimise down time and achieve team work as quickly as possible.

Rudy H
Managing Director
Indonesian group of international hospitals
Jakarta, Indonesia

For many years our growth has been mainly through mergers and acquisitions. We buy well established hospitals across the country and maximise returns by integrating systems and streamlining services. As our objective is to become a leading international hospital in South East Asia we also obtained international accreditation through the Joint Commission International (JCI), for one of our Jakarta based hospitals. Recognition by JCI, a US based accreditation body, means that one of our largest hospitals in Jakarta will meet international health service standards.

Some individual hospitals in the group were facing serious challenges. We knew we had to re-examine our strategy, but before that we had to look at the performance of our senior leaders. So we spoke to a Senior Director from Leadership Strategies to help us work through our leadership development. With his help we first clarified our strategic goals. Then we decided the type of capabilities that we want our leaders to have that will help us achieve our goals. Based on the outcomes of our discussions, we asked Leadership Strategies to design a program to help us develop the capabilities for which we were looking. We were not interested in a leadership program off the shelf. The customised program really worked for us. Since completing the program, the performance of all our leaders improved noticeably. As a result the performance of our hospitals has also improved. It is the best thing we have done for our group in a long time.

Training Programs and Courses

Staff progressing from technical to managerial roles can face specific hurdles.

Long serving journalists do not always make good managers or leaders. Some very specific skills are needed if we want these people to be outstanding managers and leaders.

CEO
A national radio and television station.
Pacific

Our radio programs are transmitted to the whole country and some neighbouring countries. Also, television signals can be picked up in most of the country and we are working to extend our reach into the region.

Our middle managers are senior journalists who have been promoted to management positions. Although they are all good journalists, they have not had formal training in management. The lack of management skills had a negative impact on staff performance, morale, motivation, innovation and productivity. I was aware that if I did not address these issues immediately, we could quickly become irrelevant in this country. We called in a consultant from Leadership Strategies to help us with this.

First, there was extensive discussion with staff from all levels of the organisation. For the first time we made the effort to examine our business goals in detail and identified the types of skills our managers should have to achieve these goals. Based on this list, Leadership Strategies designed a customised management program to develop management skills. From day one after the first program, the impact of the training was quickly evident.

Our managers are very proud of successfully completing this management program. They not only developed their management skills, they also received a much-valued Certificate of Management from an Australian tertiary institution.

Training Programs and Courses

Coaching skills. Do I need these as a manager?

How a coaching program can help managers and their organisations in dealing with developing staff?

Manager
International NGO Regional Reproductive Health
Pacific

Based in our regional office in Fiji, I am responsible for programs delivered in four countries in the Pacific region. In each country we work with a partner organisation which has its own board and management structure. I work with the CEO and board members of the organisation who are typically very committed to the program. However as inexperienced leaders they struggle to build strong internal systems and/or deliver consistently high quality programs. I try very hard to help them break through a variety of bottlenecks. For some time this was to no avail.

I raised these issues with my Regional Director who after some investigation announced that she had organised a coaching program for all managers in similar positions. A coaching program comprised a four day intensive workshop and an eight week action learning group activity. It was intensive, but by the end of the program I was confident in my skills as a coach. As a coach I don't have to be an expert in every subject. Rather, I have to know what questions to ask and listen to the person that I am coaching. The process of questioning, listening and reflecting will lead the person to solutions to problems. I also found that a coach has a greater commitment to self-generated solutions than those suggested by somebody else.

Coaching is a powerful tool to improve staff performance. It is not the solution for every performance related issue, but it is up there as one of the best I have seen in my experience. I think every manager should be trained in coaching skills.

Training Programs and Courses

How are Leadership Strategies programs different to other programs in the market?

NOT all leadership programs are the same? Picking the right one for your organisation is important!

Jeremy K
President
Indonesian mining company

At first I thought this would be just another leadership program. It didn't take me long to work out that the Leadership Strategies courses are very different. For me the most important feature of their courses is that they understand my cultural context. They did not just use material borrowed from Europe and the US. Even though some of the course material did come for the west, the facilitator adapted them so they will work for us in the Asia Pacific region. That was very important for my colleagues and me.

I also like Leadership Strategies programs because they are customised to the learning needs of participants. In particular they try and link their programs to our strategic plans. For me that is really important. Many training programs that I have been involved with in the past have not made any reference to our strategic plans. So we did not apply skills that we learned in workshops to workplace challenges! It was such a waste. With Leadership Strategies, the programs and our organisational strategies were very effectively integrated which produced a much better outcome.

Unlike other programs, at Leadership Strategies, learning does not stop at the end of a workshop. They know that most learning only starts after the workshop! So through the use of a powerful learning technique called ‘action learning' they continue to stimulate and support participants' learning.

I found their philosophy and teaching and learning techniques to be very appropriate for our situation and represent value for money.

Training Programs and Courses