Transformational Leadership

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One of the ironies of organisational life is that the higher you go, the less direct influence you have. At the very top, instead of working through a team, you are probably working through dozens of teams, several departments, and many disciplines. Your face-to-face contact time (even if you're famous for Managing By Wandering About) is likely to be miniscule. In the delayered, flattened organisational structures that are now commonplace, the bandwidth to micro-manage at any level simply isn't there anymore.

If the opportunity to micro-manage no longer exists, the challenge is to leave in your wake, the lasting motivational effects of loyalty, trust, admiration and respect that inspire people to serve and achieve more than they were considered capable of.

Transformational leadership empowers others to step up to the plate and take more initiative in their work. It inspires commitment and builds self-confidence. In the search for higher performance from people, the demand for rapid change is an inevitable part of the equation - whether it's a question of improving the product or services offered, developing new markets, growing through acquisition or merger with other organisations, or simply the constant need to do more for less. This requires far more of people than that they simply show up.

Transformational leadership is the answer to those who are facing the challenge of leading their teams, departments and organisations through change, and who are asking of themselves ‘how will it be done?'

What is transformational leadership?

• A specific set of behaviours and techniques that has been proven to engage team energy and commitment beyond the standard expectations of the money-for-work contract
• A practical leadership style that can be learnt.

It has been heavily researched and shown to be associated with enhanced organisational performance and it is particularly relevant to leadership in the ambiguous, complex environment of rapid change.

Our programmes combine group sessions and individual coaching to help leaders develop their personal transformational leadership style, in action. It is not a ‘one size fits all' proposition, and it is often not an easy journey. Our aim is to provide the learning opportunities, frameworks and techniques that will enable each leader to find their own answer to the key elements of transformational leadership:

• Vision - the communication of important purposes in simple ways, to enable people to make sense of the situation and help them answer the question ‘why should I?'
• Relationship-building - coaching and advising individuals, recognising the emotional issues, building trust
• Intellectual challenge - mobilising the team's collective intelligence to solve the problem for themselves, and to support a change because they have helped to create it themselves
• Inspirational motivation - establishing high expectations and generating self-esteem, confidence and commitment in others to meet those expectations.

Why choose us?
Transformational leadership throws up important questions about moral values and ideals, about the soul at work. Expert Organisational Development Consultants deliver our transformational leadership programmes, not trainers who don't consult. We have thought deeply about organisational life and hold coherent views on it. We are intensely values driven: our organisation has flourished because of this and not despite it.

We bring an evidence base to our programmes and enjoy receiving those tough, searching questions from teams of bright managers.

Materials that support the programme are top flight and you will be pleased to know that there is a close match between the materials and the structured learning activities.

A brief examples of our work

OPDC worked with a Managing Director of an IT Solutions company to develop him as a stronger and more effective leader. Initially, this was achieved with 1:1 executive coaching sessions which offered both theoretical input as well as personal and professional development over time, including live coaching, in vivo, in the work setting.

We designed a strategic leadership development programme for group of senior managers, all of whom were heading up functions and divisions in an international bank. The development programme spanned 7 months and consisted of 3 skills development workshops and real, workplace based practice and feedback opportunities in between the workshops. The combination of theoretical input classroom skills practice and high quality feedback plus workplace based support by the HR department proved to be extremely successful.