A leadership development programme is one of the most complex learning projects that an organisation can undertake, but also one of the most impactful. Improved management and leadership unlocks huge performance gains and, with over 20 years of experience supporting customers on this journey, we can design and deliver one that engages your learners, meets your exact requirements and reflects your organisational vision, values & culture.
Design
Effective leadership development programmes are not one-size-fits-all solutions and work best when they are tuned to the requirements of the learners that will join them. So, the first step of our design process is to gain a thorough understanding of customer context, including common challenges, operational priorities and team dynamics. This usually means arranging exploratory ‘scoping’ meetings between project stakeholders, potential learners and senior leaders, and attendees from Eliesha’s design and contract management teams. It can also mean one of our leadership development experts spending time with your organisation to observe the operational environment first-hand and speak to leaders about the skills they need, within their workplace.
Informed by this scoping process and accounting for any learning outcomes or areas of focus specified by the organisation, our experienced learning designers will select and combine relevant topics, each covering a range of skills, methods and tools, into a coherent programme that progresses logically, builds gradually and introduces behavioural change that sticks. Organisational vision, values and competency frameworks can be incorporated, as desired, and this contextualisation better enables engagement, relevance, practical application and accelerated transfer of learning to the workplace.
Our leadership development programmes are designed to be woven into the day-to-day operations of an organisation and become, for learners, development areas for the testing of useful new skills, identification of effective behaviours and discussion of future strategies. In this way, we design learning that happens with delegates, rather than to delegates and we create a training experience that is about work, rather than more work.
Delivery
The specifics of delivery are flexible to customer and learner requirements. Programmes typically centre around interactive learning workshops, with intermittent action learning sets to reinforce and embed the behaviour and knowledge changes taking place. Pre- and post-workshop activities and content are provided to encourage preparedness for learning in advance of workshops and transfer content into the workplace after them. Workshops and action learning sets can be delivered face-to-face or virtually (programmes can include both learning environments) and we typically provide access to a dedicated area on our Learning Management System (LMS) for learners to access supportive content.
We encourage the use of the latest psychometric testing and feedback exercises (e.g. Insights Discover®, 360˚ Feedback, etc.) to guide self-reflection and inform learning journeys, and can facilitate these at an early stage of the programme, including using results to inform learning learning outcomes and workshop content, before these have been finalised.
Levels of Leadership
All but the smallest organisations have tiers of leadership with their own responsibilities, accountabilities and people to manage. This creates a range of management and leadership learning needs and it’s unrealistic to expect a single ‘broad brush’ of leadership development will be successful in supporting all of them at once.
For first-line managers and team leaders, taking their initial steps into management can be daunting, exhilarating, inspiring and challenging – all at the same time. These individuals need to grow quickly in confidence, whilst learning the technical skills of people management (e.g. effective feedback, motivation, delegation, etc.).
Middle managers have often progressed from operational beginnings and there can be the temptation to be drawn back into these areas, even after promotion to a more strategic level of leadership. This flexibility can be desirable in SMEs and certain sectors, but it must not create two versions of the same manager. They must learn instead to be the bridge between the two – making the decisions and creating the plans that translate strategic objectives and priorities into high performance, effective culture and efficient change.
Time for senior and executive leaders is, naturally, extremely valuable and protected accordingly. The best approach to their development is a sharply focused and highly flexible one. Programmes suit a tailored approach and a facilitative style of delivery, meaning the trainer aims to prompt discussion, aid reflection and guide planning, just as much as teach and impart knowledge.
Accreditation
Thanks to a strong professional partnership with the Institute of Leadership (IoL), Eliesha will happily explore the addition of their ‘Institute Approved’ accreditation to any leadership development programme. This will provide independent verification that your leaders and managers are learning the most up-to-date practice and approaches, and can also include IoL studying membership for all learners, unlocking access to their additional resources and community.
As an Approved Centre with both ILM and the Chartered Management Institute (CMI), we can also create a leadership development programme based around the achievement of their popular and widely-respected management and leadership qualifications, from Levels 2 to 7. Click here to find out more about our Accredited Qualifications on their dedicated product page.
Case studies
The Law Society
To meet a learning specification drawn up by a Law Society steering group, Eliesha designed and delivered the successful Leading with Impact programme, made up of seven separate learning interventions and aligned closely to TLS’s organisational values and desired workforce competencies.
Office for National Statistics
A long-term learning partner of ONS, we have supported their workforce development strategy for a number of years with a variety of impactful leadership development pathways. These pathways have covered different areas of leadership (e.g. ‘me‘, ‘my team‘ and ‘my organisation‘), as well as different levels of leadership (e.g. ‘Fundamental Skills of Leadership’ and ‘Equipping Leaders for Excellence‘)
Aneurin Bevan University Health Board
ABUHB contracted Eliesha for the scoping, design and delivery of an important leadership development programme to support their implementation of a transformational change project entitled ‘Clinical Futures‘. This revolved around the opening of a £350 million Specialist Critical Care Centre and helped organisational managers and leaders to support their teams through the change process, whilst maintaining their own wellbeing.
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