The Journey:
Leadership today in many ways is about navigating an uncertain future through expanses of uncharted territory. This program aims to provide you with navigation tools for your leadership journey. Like the early maps and log books of exploring sailors our process together will be descriptive not predictive, we will discover land marks, identify dangers as you map out your own discoveries, find your treasure and share your insights.

The Travel Guide

Module 1: A New Context for Leadership (Travel conditions)

The environment in which organizations must operate has become progressively more turbulent. Focus has shifted from a narrow national focus to a global view both socially and economically; knowledge and creativity are the new currencies instead of land and capital; the modern employment contract reflects a change in work values; technology reels forth as family life is reshaped and demographics shift in workplaces. We see a new cynicism as people yearn for greater purpose and look to find meaning and identity in their work.

These changes pose unique challenges that require a new kind of leadership. The world has changed and so has our concept of effective leadership.

Here we explore how the world has changed, the implications of these changes on leadership; what paradigm shifts are required? What does the pioneering leader look like in his quest for a new order? What are constituents looking for in their leaders? What is leadership about in this new world?

"Our Moral responsibility is not to stop the future, but to shape it...To channel our destiny in humane directions and to ease the trauma of transition."
Alvin Toffler

Module 2: Leadership Starting from the Self

Many programs on leadership focus on the journey outward. By examining the activities and style of established leaders in order to understand how leadership works. We however start with the journey inward. By exploring how components of emotional intelligence such as self- awareness, emotional control, persistence, resilience, self motivation, empathy and interpersonal skills are linked to your leadership development. These factors are vital to the ability to become constructively engaged in one’s life, to think clearly, to make sound decisions and to build trust and credibility with others.

Knowing "who you are" is a requisite to know who you want to be as a leader.

We will tap into the leadership potential embodied in each of us and look how we can positively influence the situations we find ourselves in by creating empowering environments and enabling others to act. Understanding the processes for achieving and sustaining high performance both individually and collectively.

“The key to the ability to change is a changeless sense of who you are, what you are about and what you value”
Covey

Module 3: Creating Compelling Visions: Dream Merchants

It is a peculiarity of humans that we can only live by looking forward – something we believe is as true for an individual as it is for an organization. The loss of meaning or purpose is connected to many an organization’s illness and demise.

A clear and Compelling Vision brings purpose to life, provides concrete description of what the organization will be like when operating at its ideal best and gives all stakeholders ownership and a clear direction to pursue.

An individual with a clear and inspirational picture of his/ her future will be able to endure more hardships and hang in when times are tough, this is because the future picture unleashes energy that pulls the individual into the future. When there is no clear and inspirational picture of the future, the individual or collective entity will have no energy or enthusiasm. Hopelessness and helplessness will set in. People will become negative and inactive. When there is a clear and inspirational picture of the future, the individual or collective entity will be enthused and energized.

Here we focus on developing the ability to turn a concept into a vision that inspires; how as a leader you create enthusiasm through a collaborative vision. We believe that inspirational organizational leadership should primarily focus on painting a picture of the future. We explore your role as a dream merchant.

"Their (leaders’) job is to rally people toward a better future. Driven by their compulsion for a better future, their challenge is to do everything in their power to get other people to join together to make this future come true. They will perform this role well only when they find a way to make many people, regardless of each person’s uniqueness, excited by and confident in this better future. If, through their words, actions, images, pictures and scores, they can tap into those things we all share, they will succeed as leaders. If they can’t they will struggle"
Marcus Buckingham

Module 4: Enabling Innovation

In a world where the only constant is change and the doubling of available information causes continuous disintegration of the current business context and rules – the ability to think faster, better and innovatively is essential, and yet most of us are not future literate. Individuals and organizations are prisoners of old thinking patterns developed for a stable predictable environment...

The key to prospering during the 1990s was process innovation, being faster, better and cheaper. Success in the upcoming decade lies in product and service innovation, growing the top line of the cash statement through sales and growth, by competing based on value to the customer instead of the cost of competitors from low wage regions

Here we explore how Innovation requires leaders who understand why we can no longer solve new and ever changing problems with old solutions; we reflect on and identify how to influence the thinking and learning culture of the organization and work with a toolkit of revolutionary thinking techniques to enhance personal innovation and create a climate of innovation in order to survive and excel. Our focus is on becoming Creative Individualist’s, skillfully engaged in the organization's culture and attentive to opportunities for innovation and growth

"The new economy, a place where dramatic innovations can transform an industry in less time that it takes Tiger Woods to break par...even companies that successfully juggle the competing demands of customers, employees, and shareholders can suddenly find themselves on the brink of obsolescence..."
Fortune Magazine.