Our Approach to Leadership Development
Three Stories of Leadership Development
Our approach encompasses development of leaders, the capacity to develop more leaders, and the ability to turn leadership into organizational effectiveness. This approach reflects the science of leading researchers in leadership, a strengths-based foundation, and our personal experiences building the effectiveness of people and organizations. Developing leadership capacity involves three unfolding, intertwined stories.
Story 1: Leaders Developing
Adoption and sustained embodiment of observable leadership practices that are consistent with organizational values and produce effective actions toward strategic aims of the business.
Story 2: Development Capability Building
Creation, execution, and evolution of programs to build and grow the strategic competencies necessary for leadership and execution of the business strategy.
Story 3: Effective Organization Emerging
Role of Leadership Development in Organizational Effectiveness
Developing leaders indirectly affects many drivers of organizational performance. Both formal and informal influences of leaders and networks enable dramatic changes to the organization.
Leadership development causes leaders to consider where and how to focus attention and creates the opportunity to see new possibilities, make new commitments, and take actions to fulfill those commitments. Organizational values are evident from observable leadership practices.
Kahler Leadership Development Principles
The following are core principles we at Kahler Leadership Group use when designing leadership development programs:
- Because of the ability to make large, effective advancements with relatively small effort, we commit to working with leaders.
- Because leaders are the experts in the content of their experience, we focus our own attention on facilitating the leader's process of learning and learning to learn.
- Because the organization is the expert on what values are important and what it means to be competitive in its endeavors, we help the organization determine how to embody practices aligned with values and effective for organizational performance.
- Because the practical approaches and skills for learning and for helping others learn are not universally known and practiced, we provide research-based theory and skills development to help leaders develop themselves and ultimately help others develop as well.
- Because learning turns to sustainable practice through a combination of repeated practice and reflection in on-the-job context, we combine a minimum of classroom experience to build common language and commitment to a learning agenda with coaching to advance and sustain new thinking, skills, and behaviors on the job.
How We Work
We first seek to understand the organization, its strategic aims, and the leadership competencies required for success. Then we design experiential learning and coaching programs to help leaders adopt and embody the leadership competencies. Finally, we help the organization adopt the capabilities and build capacity to sustain and advance leadership development.
Example projects
- Build internal coaching networks to improve productivity and quality in a healthcare management firm.
- Coach managers to develop staff performance that drives customer retention.
- Create environments and practices for building partnerships and collaboration.
More consulting project examples
Common Project Activities
Major areas of activity for Kahler leadership development programs are as follows:
- Determine the leadership competencies needed for your business and culture.
- Design programs for experiential learning and focused practice of leadership competencies.
- Deliver leader development programs through competency-based experiential learning and evidence-based coaching.
- Develop in-house leader development capabilities.
- Create organizational designs, programs, and systems to support development and utilization of leaders.
