Leapfrog International

Leadership Example

Background and Company Aspiration:

The company aspiration was to nurture a positive and engaging working environment. An environment where employees could understand the importance of being the best, where there was a climate in which innovation could flourish, an environment where people could enjoy coming to work, feeling recognised, rewarded, have the opportunities to develop and grow as individuals.

The company had an important role to play in creating this environment, especially with their current and future leaders at all levels in the organisation. These set of leaders would have the greatest impact on how the employees felt about the way they worked and consequently the staff satisfaction. It was vital that these leaders understand and identify with the importance of their role as a leader, live the company values and appreciate everyone’s unique personal contribution. The requirement was to “Take the Lead”.

Key Objectives:

- Enable the employees to understand and engage with company aspirations

- Set expectations of how employees need to behave to demonstrate leadership, set values and become a high performing organisation.

- Provide leadership training with key messages of success which can be applied within a day to day role?

- Create an understanding of how the employees can reinforce the company culture by exploring their role as a leader and taking responsibility to deliver performance and engage employees.

- Provide understanding and generate practical actions that can be done in the workplace to improve staff engagement, to make people feel special and to take ownership for what they do and how they do it.

- To enable them to develop ideas and actions that they can translate into the day-to-day working environment and which can be used to develop their skills as a leader and their career.

- Create an understanding of how they can learn from best practice within the organisation to build better relationships and communicate more effectively.

- To create a sense of belonging.

- To network with other leaders/future leaders across the business to enable all to learn from each other.

The Leadership Programme:

After initial findings, evaluations and diagnostics a Leadership Programme was developed titled “Take the Lead”. The first step was setting out the company values, and embracing these values, through a senior manager’s conference event, incorporating Leapfrog’s successful “Big Picture” programme. The “Big Picture” programme is a highly visual and spectacular way to demonstrate company vision and values through creative interaction. On completion of the first event a small impression of the “Big Picture” along with the company values was printed distributed throughout every UK office and strategically placed in reception for everyone to see and share. This set the scene for the learning journey ahead.

The senior manager’s conference was followed by a series of one day workshops titled “Take the Lead” which was held on a monthly basis over a three year period. Each workshop was held near one of the company’s main offices which were located throughout the UK with approximately 60 to 150 delegates attending each workshop. Each delegate that attended the workshop received a complimentary book with a specially designed and personalised development plan work-book from which they could create their own actions and development plans.

From the outset we challenged ourselves to find unusual locations that were different from normal training and conference venues ensuring the environment had plenty of natural light, it was a place conducive to learning, whilst being comfortable and spacious with the freedom to express oneself openly.

The importance of these leadership workshops was supported by having the CEO attend each session. He would introduce the day by setting out the corporate plan, defining what is meant by “Take the Lead”, and setting out expectations. This was followed by an introduction to Leadership from our truly sensational motivational speaker.

The workshop provided clear and thorough insights into the importance of Leadership, harnessing the different styles of Leadership, Management and Coaching incorporating an overview of what great leaders do and the five practices of exemplary leadership. The workshops were a mix of theory, practical elements, funny stories and anecdotes, metaphorical games and exercises, coaching sessions and most of all they were a place where almost everyone went home with the desire to become a better leader and change started to happen. Delegates were enjoying the experience, embracing new ways of thinking and doings things. They wanted a fresh chance, they wanted to try new ideas and share their new learning’s. It was such an amazing experience to see individuals truly want to change and improve not only the company, but themselves and their teams.

Outcome:

A set of workshops have been developed in house to compliment the “Take the Lead” Leadership Programme and are proving to be an invaluable source of learning. The company’s guiding principles now define how they behave as an organisation and are built upon the corporate values, set out initially at the senior manager’s conference. The company has improved its staff retention ratio and is moving forward to its desired goals. Over 85% of all delegates attending the workshops found the experience exceptional. The company was a Personnel Today Award winner with their Learning and Development Programme which included the “Take the Lead “Leadership Programme. The organisation is now a Sunday Times Top 20 companies award winner.

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