Leading from Within

In this challenging and competitive time, organizations need leaders with resiliency and character, who know who they are and who exhibit the kind of strong leadership that others will follow. Leading from Within (LFW) goes beyond rote skills and process checklists to help a leader learn how. Because leadership comes from within, leaders need to examine—and clearly articulate—personal values, talents, contributions, and vision as the foundation of self-leadership. LFW is for all the leaders of your organization who need to examine, understand, and develop their leadership philosophy so they can become the grounded, resilient leaders that organizations in tumultuous times really need. It is for anyone seeking to understand and live their leadership philosophy.

Leading from Within examines the essence of leadership—the core questions that leaders must answer for themselves from within. This process workshop provides leaders with tools and strategies to explore the challenges of leadership, enhance their personal effectiveness and integrity as leaders, and better enable them to lead.

LFW provides the tools for examining and sharing a leadership philosophy and creating a personal vision of leadership.

Program Outcomes

Firmly rooted leadership values—integrity, commitment, and clear values—may occur naturally sometimes, but most leaders are too busy to stop and think about the inner roots of quality leadership. Leading from Within is an intense experience that resets leaders to think more deeply and commit to their values and beliefs. LFW enables leaders to become the kind of leader that others want to follow by:

Understanding what it means to lead
Establishing their leadership foundation
Meeting their leadership challenges
Meeting the expectations of those they serve

Approach

Leading from Within is a simple but powerful program. It is an intense one-and-a-half day experience of facing the challenges of leadership in order to realize the basis of an approach to inner leadership.

During the session, best practices in instructional design, process facilitation, and adult learning are utilized to create a dynamic learning environment, including individual reflection, small- and large-group discussions, planning, and application exercises.

The program can be enhanced by an (optional) Management Alignment session where senior leadership demonstrates support for this grounded approach. Some companies find it more effective to put the senior leadership team through LFW first.

Leading from Within can be delivered by a Wilson Learning facilitator, or for larger companies it may be more efficient and effective to develop a group of facilitators who can implement a large program and provide ongoing support.

Enabling Improved Performance

Leading from Within provides a strong beginning, but what follows to sustain the changed perspective and performance needs to be organic to the organization. LFW strongly encourages leaders to share the Leadership Framework created in the program with their people to enhance accountability and to bring clarity of vision, values, and direction. Optimally, senior leaders who attend LFW to lead by example will also share their Leadership Framework with their managers and others. In some organizations, participants' managers schedule conversations soon after LFW and at regular intervals.

Evaluation

Organizations that implement Leading from Within have access to measurement and evaluation tools. Wilson Learning can provide optional knowledge tests, manager interviews, survey instruments for direct reports to document changed behavior, and more. These optional measurement tools can illustrate the difference in knowledge and observed behavior. However, the most meaningful measurement is subtler and will be seen anecdotally over time—are the leaders better, more resilient, more grounded in times of crisis and turmoil?

Wilson Learning will partner with your organization to measure both the initial behavioral changes and business results. Our common interest in making sure that Leading from Within delivers the results you seek. We are committed to helping you succeed, and we will work with you to set up measurement systems to keep the change going after it's well begun.

To learn more about measuring the impact of learning, visit Measurement and Evaluation Services.

This offering, like all others from Wilson Learning, can be customized to reflect your leadership environment and business priorities and can be integrated with your existing processes.