Next-Level Leadership Development
Ujima Donalson, POD Director
While Level 1 of the Strategic Leadership Program remains essential for leaders new to supervising or to the UW, seasoned leaders face challenges and opportunities that require a much deeper skillset. In recent years POD has expanded offerings that build upon the core teachings of SLP and foster advanced leadership development, and hundreds of you have called upon our leadership coaching, 360-degree assessments, and other consulting services or have participated in Level 2 of the Strategic Leadership Program through the Leadership Agility Series.
Your engagement with these programs and services has shown the strong need and desire for development that exists at this level, both among SLP graduates and those in the upper echelons. This winter, we're adding Core Strengths Accountability to the suite of SLP Level 2 offerings, which you can learn more about at the POD Leadership Preview, a complimentary event for UW leaders on January 7, 2016.
Why We Chose Core Strengths
When I wrote about the book Crucial Accountability in The Leading Edge last fall, the response was immediate; I heard from so many leaders who were struggling with how to practice and promote accountability on their teams. With so much interest from around the UW, POD invested in facilitator certification for myself and for POD’s Linda Callecod, Lynne Lazaroff, and Susan Templeton.
The crux of Core Strengths is transforming from a culture of compliance to a culture of accountability, in which individuals choose to take both ownership and initiative. The program uses an internationally recognized personality assessment, the Strengths Deployment Inventory, as a basis. The SDI was developed by Elias Porter, who decades ago based his early work on Erich Fromm's descriptions of non-productive personalities (which themselves stemmed from the work of Sigmund Freud).
Most of us enjoy taking self-assessments because they provide an engaging way to learn about ourselves. This is true of Core Strengths, but the program goes well beyond simple self-assessment with an intensive workshop integrating people, performance, and process. This triad encompasses all aspects of work, from how we each approach tasks, relationships, and individual and organizational priorities to how teams either struggle or thrive in the face of conflict or other hardships.
Core Strengths approaches the idea of individual strengths differently than thought-leaders in the field such as Marcus Buckingham. Whereas Buckingham encourages people to recognize their individual strengths and champion strengths over weaknesses, Core Strengths promotes the idea that we all have access to the same strengths. The key with Core Strengths is recognizing your typical behavioral patterns or default styles and more intentionally making choices about what you bring to the table at any given moment. Not only is this incredibly empowering on an individual level, the rich material and activities open the door for leaders to better understand the complex motivations and values that guide their team members' behavior.
Because we anticipate Core Strengths Accountability will be in high demand, we are offering two sections in winter quarter, as well as the aforementioned Preview for leaders who would like to learn more. I should also note that we're capping each Core Strengths workshop at 25 because the material is quite complex and we believe a smaller class size will enhance your learning and overall experience.
The Success of Leadership Agility Continues
SLP Level 2 kicked off in 2010 with the Leadership Agility Series, and workshops continue to fill regularly. For those not yet familiar with this offering, the series features a workshop each quarter focused on one aspect of leadership agility. The workshop material is based upon a well-researched and highly regarded book, Leadership Agility: Five Levels of Mastery for Anticipating and Initiating Change, by Bill Joiner and Stephen Josephs. Although the source material is outstanding, it can be quite abstract and also overly focused on the private sector. When we in POD designed the curriculum for this series, we reframed the material for a higher ed setting; moreover, we have developed numerous tools and activities to provide for more practical application of the content.
In many ways, Leadership Agility was our first foray into advanced material that's designed to challenge participants at a deeper level. We're continuing to work with more advanced offerings, not just for leaders but for staff members, for instance with intensive courses that rely on a combination of in-class lecture and activities as well as outside work. A current example is this quarter's Kaizen Methods and Practice, which requires completing homework assignments after the first two of three weekly sessions. We anticipate being able to offer more advanced offerings over the next two years.
360-Degree Feedback Designed for the UW
About six years ago, we launched UW ARC 360, a 360-degree feedback and development program based on competencies created by POD for specific roles at the UW. This program now includes assessments for individual contributors, front-line supervisors, mid-level managers, and, our most recent addition, chancellors, deans, and executives (which we developed with input from the Provost's Office). UW ARC 360 has taken a few years to catch on, in part because a 360-degree assessment can seem intimidating and also because this is largely uncharted territory here at the UW. However, as leaders across the University have participated and realized the benefit of 360-degree feedback, we've seen more and more of you express interest.
UW ARC 360 for Chancellors, Deans, and Executives is designed for executive-level leaders who must be successful at many levels and in multiple areas, including long-term planning and organizational goals. Leaders participating in this 360 can assign up to 40 participants to take the assessment, which could include anyone from their direct reports to colleagues, clients served by their organization, or external stakeholders. Those participating in UW ARC 360 for Mid-Level Managers have competencies that address strategic planning/visioning and leading organizational change and can select up to 20 participants.
Participating in 360-degree feedback means participating in a process in which you rate yourself and are rated by others on a set of competencies. While this may seem daunting, for leaders the potential benefit is huge. A 360 allows you to see yourself from many different perspectives, provides insight into others' perceptions of your contributions and abilities, and—through the help of a leadership coach dedicated to you—provides direction for your development.
What's Next
As always, through The Leading Edge and other avenues, we strive to keep you attuned to new offerings, leadership trends, and key resources. We hope you will join us at the upcoming POD Leadership Preview. We view these events not just as a chance to introduce you to what we're doing but also to find out what's on your mind, surface unmet needs, and respond to your questions. In addition, we truly enjoy connecting with so many of you in person.
