Next week brings a close to yet another dynamic 4-month Leadership Series. I’ve been facilitating this series, along with my co-worker Darrin Finley, for several years now. And each time around, I secretly admit that I walk away learning more than the attendees. (And we cover a pretty thick binder of material, so they learn A LOT!) Interacting with attendees with all levels of experience, across a variety of industries, a mixture of backgrounds, ages, and parts of the country… I learn and grow right along with them. My favorite takeaway is when two leaders, who’ve never met before, leave the series with new networking contacts. “Hey, can I call you about that IT program you put in place?” overheard between two attendees after a class certainly strengthens my conviction that these training sessions are making an impact.
Each series takes on its own “personality” over the eight (8) session period. Some groups have more experience and are pretty spirited from Day One, some start out with a quiet sense of curiosity and develop synergy pretty quickly, and some are filled with excited members who are mostly new to leading and have a huge passion and big ideas. Everyone has something to learn from each other in these unique and varied groups. What I continue to appreciate is that the feedback, by the last week, always has pretty consistent themes, with end-of-class comments sounding something like:
“I learned how to truly communicate with my team members. I’m definitely a ‘Direct Communicator,’ but now I can better relate to the ‘Spirited Communicators’ on my team.”
“I used to cringe thinking about giving a performance evaluation. I’m more confident in giving feedback.”
“I’ve been afraid people think I’m not doing a good job – and this has helped me be confident in my leadership skills.”
Here’s my challenge to you – take a look at yourself and your team. Who needs to develop some leadership confidence? How skilled of a communicator are you? Could I benefit from some formal and current leadership training (that class from 5 years ago has expired!)?
Find an opportunity to learn and grow and encourage your team to do the same. If these leadership training statements sound familiar, give me a call. There’s room in my class for you!
Looking forward to learning FROM you soon,
