Get to know Sharon Kiley of LiJack Consultancy

Sharon Kiley

L&D Consultant, LiJack Consultancy Sharon@lijackconsultancy.co.uk

lead Taking the

As a company enjoying sustainable growth at a time that so many are, at best, struggling, we recognise the importance of supporting our staff and helping to secure their future as part of ours. This is perhaps most true when it comes to our Management Team. A group of talented, hard-working and, just as crucial, fun and interesting people. That’s why we began a highly rewarding relationship with Lijack Consultancy, to better develop and inspire our leaders. In this article, Sharon Kiley from Lijack Consultancy explains how this works.

Leadership development programs are crucial to the long-term success of every organisation. An effective leader will inspire, motivate and drive an organisation forward – but a bad leader can do the opposite.

Whether you believe leaders are born or made, (I for one believe they can be made!), investment in developing great leaders with the right attitudes and behaviours is vital for the future of your company.

Investing in leadership development–doesn’t involve just a colourful Power Point training session, but development that stimulates, is interactive, challenging and relatable directly back to the workplace where the real progress is made. It’s also ongoing and cannot end when the course does.

At Lijack Consultancy we draw on over 20 years’ experience of designing and delivering management development programmes and soft skills training and our ILM Approved Management Development programme are the benchmark for high-quality, bespoke in-house management and leadership training providing amazing results.

Who are the ILM?

The Institute of Leadership & Management are much more than just a professional body. With an active community of over 40,000 leaders, managers and coaches, they create award-winning e-learning resources, and undertake practical research to support individuals and organisations in developing, and inspiring, great leadership everywhere.

Benefits of an ILM programme to your organisation

The ILM’s flexible and cutting edge approach to leadership development delivers the highest quality, independent and interactive learning environment within a community that thrives upon the latest leadership thinking. Great leadership development enables you to…

Unlock potential

Push boundaries

Build and sustain agile businesses Stand out from your competitors and colleagues Attract and retain skilled, high performing people

Recently PSG provided an opportunity for 3 of it’s Managers to attend a bespoke ILM approved programme delivered by Lijack Consultancy. Over 9 months the managers covered 4 modules focusing on developing their skills in a range of areas which could be directly applied back to the workplace.

01

Building self and leadership awareness

As a manager building self-awareness is vital and by using the Insights Discovery tool, PSG managers were able to understand how their psychological preferences impact their management effectiveness.

Every person has all four colour energies within them; it is the combination of these energies which creates each unique personality. Our colour energies refer to a set of characteristics that tend to be our most preferred or most natural way to be. Have you considered which colour type might be your preference?

Detailed Reserved Analytical Disciplined Diligent Thoughtful Consistent Objective Direct Decisive Focused Proactive Determined Purposeful Courageous Confident Considerate Helpful Accommodating Appreciative Supportive Reliable Patient Valuing Enthusiastic Adaptable Empowering Flexible Encouraging Interactive Engaging Dynamic

02

Leading and managing others

“The difference between management and leadership is like the difference between sun and moon, night and day, hot and cold, coming and going, and so on. They are two sides of the same coin. While different and distinct, they are parts of the whole: essential contrasts, which make clearer the other.” (Adapted from a quote by Eric Garner). PSG managers recognised what great leadership and management looks like and how they can adapt their style to inspire and motivate their team.

03

Improving performance

The function of a great leader is to create the environment for success. Everyone wants to be able to come to work and do a good job and during this module, PSG managers learnt about the building blocks of success for creating the environment for performance:

Setting Goals

Giving feedback on performance

Leveraging performance through motivation

04

Building and developing a team

Every Rolls Royce is a car, but not every car is a Rolls Royce. Similarly, not every team is a high-performing team and during this module managers learnt how to build and sustain effective team working, transitioning from a good team to a great team.

How do your teams measure up?

Find out on the next page with 10 characteristics you can use to measure your team performance.

10 characteristics of high-performing teams

Most members of high-performing teams report that it’s fun and satisfying to work on collaborative teams because they are asked to contribute at their highest potential and they learn a lot along the way. Characteristics of high-performing teams include the following:

01

People have solid and deep trust in each other and in the team’s purpose — they feel free to express feelings and ideas.

02

Everybody is working toward the same goals.

03

Team members are clear on how to work together and how to accomplish tasks.

04

Everyone understands both team and individual performance goals and knows what is expected.

05

Team members actively diffuse tension and friction in a relaxed and informal atmosphere.

06

The team engages in extensive discussion, and everyone gets a chance to contribute — even the introverts.

07

Disagreement is viewed as a good thing and conflicts are managed. Criticism is constructive and is orientated towards problem solving and removing obstacles.

08

The team makes decisions when there is natural agreement — in the cases where agreement is elusive, a decision is made by the team lead or executive sponsor, after which little second-guessing occurs.

09

Each team member carries his or her own weight and respects the team processes and other members.

10

The leadership of the team shifts from time to time, as appropriate, to drive results.

No individual members are more important than the team.

And the results are in

As a result of their commitment and dedication to the programme, this group of PSG managers are now proud owners of an ILM certificate showing they’ve met the benchmark for approval and applying the learnings into the teams to inspire, lead and deliver amazing results.