The Moment
Across 2021 and 2022 Performance Frontiers had the great pleasure of partnering with a large local council for the 12th iteration of its Leadership Development Program (LDP12). This program serves the important role of augmenting leadership capability in the organisation and as a key learning and development pathway for the council’s people. Many current and former leaders at the organisation have passed through the program, including one member of the current Executive Team (as at the time of writing). Coming into the design of LDP12, the council had completed a recent culture survey, which unearthed important opportunities for growth across the organisation and these were a particular focus for the program.
LDP12 brought together all the best of its predecessor programs, re-energised and re-focused on what the council needs to flourish in 2022 and beyond. Unique for its focus on distributed leadership, the LDP is open to any member of the team who wants to build their skills and capabilities as a leader, rather than just those in formal leadership positions. This program ran for 9 months with 22 participants.
The Method
The LDP incorporated a range of learning initiatives and elements into a holistic pathway, which is designed to create a truly immersive experience for participants – one that often changes their relationship to their workplace irrevocably. Centred around four learning intensives on leadership topics, such as leading self, others and teams, the program also incorporates LSI assessments and debriefs, coaching sessions, an innovation and design thinking project initiative, mentor/mentee relationships and a ‘graduation’ event. Participants graduate from the program champions for leadership in all its facets and ready to effect positive change using the tools they had acquired and the mindsets they had cultivated.
The Measure
LDP12 saw hugely encouraging results. Through pre- and post-program surveys, across the board increases were measured in self and supervisor assessment of a range of leadership mindsets and metrics. Moreover, the project initiatives developed during the design thinking part of the pathway were adopted by council management for implementation with additional funding allocated to enable their success. The organisation’s next generation of leaders were ready to step up and drive it forward.
