Our training designs are targeted at emerging and mid-level leaders and reflect our belief that a leadership development program needs to leverage important principles of learning and leadership in a way that will promote maximum learning, retention and transfer to the job.

You will find our unique approach to personal and professional development can deliver action learning in ways that cannot be replicated by traditional training approaches.

Jackson Leadership Systems’ Leadership Academy

We believe an important part of addressing the need to build talent capacity is to put young leaders through a "Leadership Academy.” Our Leadership Academy brings together an organization’s best young leaders for an intensive two days of leadership learning and group activities with peers and associates. Participants are typically from similar, though not necessarily identical levels of management, and are often called together from a variety of geographic locations. Several different training modules are presented that cover off five aspects that form the basis of effective leader functioning:

• Recognition, Reward, and Motivation
• Leading with Integrity
• Converting Tactics into Strategy
• Change Leadership
• Communication, Influence, and Persuasion

A Jackson Leadership Innovation: Alumni Network Pods

We strongly recommend that leaders who attend the academy take part in a structured process in which each participant can remain in touch with members of their break-out groups formed during the Leadership Academy. Groups of four to six leaders form "Alumni Leader Pods” and take part in a facilitated, 90 minute conference calls on a quarterly basis to discuss their individual leadership challenges. Peers discuss current organizational challenges with peers and work together to resolve their problems and maintain their friendships, networks, and contacts. Typically, participants will set goals and action plans regarding their respective challenges that will be tracked across quarterly calls. We have found that this process is critical in reinforcing learning and keeping leaders involved and jointly focused on current organizational goals.

Benefits of the Leadership Academy Workshops:

• Leaders will be identified and developed to ensure they are successful if and when they assume executive-level positions in the company
• Real learning and transfer of training through action learning and Alumni Network facilitation
• "High-Potential” leaders will learn critical leadership skills honed by over 40 years of practice and research by Jackson Leadership Systems
• Leaders will build their social network with others in the organization, and potentially with leaders in different locations, offering increased cross-communication and cohesion
• The academy establishes a "Talent Mindset” culture
• Organizations protect against loss of senior talent to competing firms because of the investment being made in their leaders’ development
• Better protection against global competition through having a more prepared, capable set of leaders

Recognition, Reward, and Motivation

Fundamental to effective leadership is the ability to inspire others to superior effort and performance. Three key competencies that are required to accomplish this task are a genuine interest in others, the ability to set goals and build effective rewards into the context of work, and the ability to motivate people to pursue the goals that have been set out.

In our workshop on Recognition, Reward, and Motivation, we:

• Discuss how to provide vision to build cohesive, effective teams
• Learn to reinforce desired behaviour, and build skills in others using recognition as a motivator
• Practice how to institute a "Developmental Mindset” with your team
• Learn how to tailor rewards to individual motivational patterns
• Set goals for using this information inside the participants’ current teams

Leading with Integrity

Today’s business climate stresses the need for transparency, accountability, and integrity from organizational leaders at all levels. Integrity has a number of different sub-dimensions including genuineness, openness, and altruism. In many ways, we believe integrity to lie at the heart of strong leadership.

In our workshop on integrity, participants will:

• Discuss what we mean by Integrity and why it is important in leadership
• Understand and apply a model for sound, ethical decision making
• Conduct an "Integrity Pitfalls & Integrity Enhancer” analysis
• Discover the "Integrity Tool Box”: Six tools that help to create and lead with Integrity, and apply at least one to a problem the leaders face today
• Build/enhance leaders’ integrity compasses
• Set goals to enhance personal, team, and organizational integrity

Converting Tactics into Strategy

By far our most common developmental suggestion to emerging leaders is to improve their strategic orientation. This involves a broadening the scope of decision-making to incorporate organizational strategy, as well as understanding the complex system in which all organizational decisions are made.

In "Converting Tactics to Strategy," participants will:

• Discuss what strategy is and why it is important
• Discuss the difference between strategy and strategic planning
• Discuss what we mean by strategic thinking and how it differs from tactical thinking
• Discuss the characteristics of a strategic thinker
• Open the "Strategic Thinking Tool Box”, learn two methods for thinking strategically, and practice by applying them to current business challenges
• Set goals to apply the tools learned to a business challenge

Change Leadership

In today’s world of work, change management is a key challenge for any leader. The true challenge, however, is not simply the management of change, but successfully motivating and leading others through the anxiety, task difficulty, and uncertainty that often accompany change to produce lasting results.

In our change management workshop, participants will:

• Discuss a model of change and understand the challenges inherent in each portion of that model.
• Discuss the challenges and opportunities that change presents
• Understand and discuss opportunities to lead change inside their organization using the change model
• Discuss key components in how to cope with the challenges of change, and the major concerns in effectively leading others through change

Communication, Influence, and Presentation

Well-renowned leadership researcher and consultant Jeffery Pfeffer has often said that leadership is the exercise of influence and persuasion. To be able to harness their leadership potential, future leaders must communicate with impact and understand how to present information to leverage their natural style.

In this workshop, participants will:

• Develop an understanding of, and practice, effective communication skills
• Practice active listening, feedback, and self-expression techniques
• Develop understanding of the principles of effective presentation
• Review and practice specific strategies that can be used to improve effective communication and influence

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