| SUCCESSFUL EXAMPLES |
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| Leadership knows no age |
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Context:
Human Invest has always been involved in supporting and developing promising young people from our academic environment. That's why, this year, we've renewed our partnership with one of the biggest national NGOs, itself part of a global network present in more than 90 countries.
Its main goal is to develop leadership abilities among young people starting from a college level. They are given the opportunity to occupy management positions, such as leading a project team or an internal department.
Through our interactions with the members of this organization we discovered two important aspects regarding leadership:
• although everyone was talking about leadership, there was no common understanding as to what it involves at an organizational level coupled with a lack of education programs towards this direction
• despite the numerous management positions created, leadership abilities were not a focus for the people who occupied them. Management efforts were concentrated on tasks and results rather than the members of the team. The abilities that were developed at the end of these internships were more towards functionality and less towards leadership
Our solution:
We chose The Student Leadership Challenge® in order to offer members a better understanding of what leadership means. It also helps in creating a common language within the organization and also building an environment in which leadership abilities can be developed!
This particular program is a by-product of The Leadership Challenge® developed by Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner, the authors of the book with the same title. The instruments are based on the five practices of leadership resulted from an intensive research project with the goal of determining what the essential leadership abilities of an organization should be in order for it to achieve the best results.
Implementation:
• for starters we created a team of four trainers from within the organization, people who had past leadership experiences. The team went through a Train the Trainers program in order to learn about The Student Leadership Challenge®
• under our guidance and counseling, these trainers delivered the program to management teams from all local headquarters of the organization
• the trainers also maintain a close relation with participants to encourage them in implementing the solutions they learned and they also work together in all the follow-up activities
• six months later, participants are given the opportunity to measure their leadership abilities again. For this we use Student Leadership Practices Inventory®, an instrument which measures strong and weak points, resulting in the creation of a development plan as well as obtaining a greater level of commitment in the process of becoming leaders
Results:
Although the program is in the process of implementation, positive changes are already starting to appear! Organization members now have a different understanding and approach concerning the role of a leader and they are actively working towards developing and implementing the five practices of leadership.
Participants have so far gone through a process of defining their visions when it comes to the project/ department they are responsible for and have already found ways in which they can share their newly built personal vision. The focus is still on personal examples when it comes to current activities as well as fostering quality personal relations with the members of the teams they are leading.
Conclusion:
Working together with this group, made us realize that everyone can be a good leader, no matter the age or experience. Because when we talk about leadership what we actually mean is: relations, credibility and personal example.
Iulian Olariu
Trainer
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Human Invest is a Premier League company in the arena of training and
organizational development consultancy services, present on the Romanian market since 1998.
We are recognized for conceiving and implementing programs which offer managers an authentic experience towards improving their leadership
performances, and thus we support companies in becoming more and more engaged in delivering excellent services for their clients.
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