Leadership Development & Mentoring
Leadership development programs can make the difference in good leaders and
great ones. Research indicates that the number one reason employees say they
leave their jobs is "my manager." Many times managers are not equipped with the
requisite skills to lead people. They are good managers of "things" but not
always good leaders of "people." At Ernstmann Consulting we work with your
organizational leaders to design programs that help leaders inspire, encourage,
coach and develop others. We also design programs to help the organization get
better results.
Leading People: Inspiring, encouraging, coaching and developing. We use a
variety of tools that give leaders feedback on their performance and their
strengths and weaknesses:
Multi-rater Feedback - We use several multi-rater assessments (also known as
360-degree feedback assessments) where leaders receive performance feedback from
their boss, peers, subordinates and others on what they are doing well and what
they could improve. Once they receive this feedback, they meet with one of our
coaches to design an action plan for improvement
Style Assessments - We encourage the use of several instruments, such as values
assessments, the Myers-Briggs Indicator and others, to help leaders learn more
about themselves and how best to motivate and lead their people. We help leaders
use this information to create development plans that leverage strengths and
improve weaknesses.
Getting Results: We use a variety of tools, techniques and processes to help
leaders achieve greater results through others:
Action Learning - Action learning is a technique where leaders participate in a
process to solve real-world business problems while also learning more about how
to work in a team. Participants follow these steps: 1) defining the problem, 2)
reframing the problem, 3) determine problem causes, 4) developing alternative
solutions, 5) evaluating alternatives and selecting the best action and 6)
implementing the solution. The key to action learning is not only learning
problem resolution skills, but also skills of reflection and collaboration.
Organization Assessment - To help organizations achieve the results they want,
we first begin by assessing the organization's strengths and weaknesses. We do
this by using a leadership culture survey, which delivers an impactful "litmus
test" of your leadership culture. It tells how your leaders view the current
leadership culture and compares it to the optimal culture they desire. Once gaps
are assessed, we design a program for your leaders to close those gaps.
Mentoring: Research has shown that companies who employ a formal mentoring
program have lower retention rates and are better equipped to deal with
organizational change or crises.
In addition, formal mentoring programs that are
sponsored by the larger organization and have structures in place for selection,
training and goal setting are consistently more successful than informal, less
structured programs. Some areas where a mentoring program can assist your
organization include 1) speedier assimilation of new employees to increase
retention, 2) better preparation of emerging leaders in order to improve
succession planning and 3) increased competence and skill building of technical
staff to improve performance. At Ernstmann Consulting we work with you to
carefully design a formal program where the mentoring initiative is clearly
defined and has specific measurements for gauging progress. The program
objectives you decide on will then influence selection of applicants, matching
process, determination of special events and other program elements.