The Dark Side of Leadership

Even the most well-intentioned leaders can become train wrecks during a crisis, and the coronavirus pandemic has resulted in some of highest stress levels ever experienced by leaders. One way to prevent this from happening is for leaders to gain insight into and better manage their dark side personality traits. This course provides leaders insight to how they are likely to interpret the world and treat subordinates while under stress and pressure. Through interpretation of your Hogan Insights Report (that predicts career-derailing behaviors that interfere with the ability to build a cohesive and high-performing team) participants explore how strengths may become risk factors.
Derailing behaviors:
  • Excitable – Concerns being overly enthusiastic about people or projects, and then becoming disappointed with them.  Result: seems to lack persistence.
  • Skeptical – Concerns being socially insightful, but cynical and overly sensitive to criticism. Result: seems to lack trust.
  • Cautious – Concerns being overly worried about being criticized. Result: seems resistant to change and reluctant to take chances.
  • Reserved – Concerns lacking interest in or awareness of the feelings of others. Result: seems to be a poor communicator.
  • Leisurely – Concerns being independent, ignoring others’ requests, and becoming irritable if they persist. Result: seems stubborn, procrastinating, and uncooperative.
  • Bold – Concerns having inflated views of one’s competency and worth. Result: seems unable to admit mistakes or learn from experience.
  • Mischievous – Concerns being charming, risk-taking, and excitement-seeking. Result: seems to have trouble maintaining commitments and learning from experience.
  • Colorful – Concerns being dramatic, engaging, and attention-seeking. Result: seems preoccupied with being noticed and may lack sustained focus.
  • Imaginative – Concerns thinking and acting in interesting, unusual, and even eccentric ways. Result: seems creative but possibly lacking in judgment.
  • Diligent – Concerns being conscientious, perfectionistic, and hard to please. Result: tends to disempower staff.
  • Dutiful – Concerns being eager to please and reluctant to act independently. Result: tends to be pleasant and agreeable, but reluctant to support subordinates.

Executive Coaching – Individual Opportunity

The great benefit of executive coaching is that you are very likely to see quick, positive results as an outcome. This is because coaching is participative and people tend to learn and adopt new habits more easily when they are actively engaged in the learning process. As soon as a coaching session ends you can implement a new practice.  The process is entirely devoted to you – your issues and the attainment of new behavior goals. One great point about coaching is that it takes place over an extended period of time. Which means you will be constantly challenged and encouraged to work on issues that need improvement. By constantly doing better you practice good habits and the more you practice – the more natural it becomes to automatically change and improve your behaviors.
This course provides the opportunity to take a robust 360/multirater assessment, MBTI and FIRO-B.  It includes a 2-hour preparatory session on the assessments and five 1-hour online coaching sessions. All of our coaches are seasoned, experienced and certified.
The benefits of coaching an individual include:
  • Improvement in an individual’s performance, targets and goals
  • Increased openness to personal learning and development
  • Increased ability to identify solutions to specific work-related issues
  • Greater ownership and responsibility
  • Development of self-awareness
  • Improvement of specific skills or behavior
  • Greater clarity in roles and objectives
  • The opportunity to correct behavior/performance difficulties

Navigating Crucial Conversations

Whether dealing with interpersonal conflict, engaging in conversation, or negotiating your interests, this session explores your preferred conflict-handling mode and enhances your ability to use the mode that best fits the situation through the “Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument” and group discussions.
Though everyone is different, there is a pattern to how most people handle conflict. The assessments call these patterns conflict-handling modes or conflict-handling styles. Understanding all the conflict modes helps you add to your bag of tools and choose which tool, or tools, will be most effective (although not necessarily the most comfortable to use) in different situations.
The Five Conflict-Handling Modes involve different levels of assertiveness (the degree to which you try to satisfy your own concerns) and cooperativeness (the degree to which you try to satisfy the concerns of another person):
  • Competing is assertive and uncooperative, and typically the goal is to “win” (my direction is the right direction).
  • Accommodating is unassertive and cooperative—the opposite of competing—and the goal is to “yield” (okay, we will do it your way).
  • Avoiding is unassertive and uncooperative, and the goal is to “delay” (it will go away, or it is not worth my time, or I will deal with it tomorrow).
  • Collaborating is both assertive and cooperative—the opposite of avoiding—and the goal is to “find a win-win solution” (how can we both come out ahead?).
  • Compromising is moderately assertive and moderately cooperative, and the goal is to “find middle ground” (you get half and I get half).

Getting to Know Me

This session starts the journey to understanding interactions in the workplace, providing a foundation of self-awareness and common language across the organization.  Through the administration and facilitation of the MBTI (Myers Briggs Type Indicator Step 1 – Extraversion/Introversion, Sensing/Intuition, Thinking/Feeling, Judging/Perceiving) and FIRO-B (Fundamental Interpersonal Relationship Orientation – Behavior – Expressed versus Wanted; Inclusion, Control, Affection), participants will:
  • Increase their self-knowledge: leadership strengths, weaknesses, behavioral preferences and leadership tendencies.
  • Understand the impact their “leadership style” has on those around them.
  • Know why and how our differences can be strengths.
  • Know what they prefer and how they show up.
  • Know how to adapt to their environment and the people around them to be more effective.

Influential Awareness and Impact

Today’s workplace is characterized by unprecedented levels of change and complexity. Workplace realities such as identifying shared goals, leading complex and often dispersed teams, boundary spanning, coordinating matrixed projects and integrating diverse people and interests require the capacity to influence others. Good leadership has a positive and unifying impact. Whether you are leading, following, and/or collaborating, chances are you need to influence others to be successful. The ability to influence effectively is emerging as a key skill for a new generation of leaders.  To influence effectively you must be adept at getting your opinions and ideas heard, recognized, and considered by others.
This workshop (using the Influence Style Indicator and accompanying activities) enhances your awareness of your preferred style and how to adapt for greater effectiveness. These five distinctive styles are Rationalizing, Asserting, Negotiating, Inspiring, and Bridging.
Influence inherently means that you can impact the ideas, opinions and actions of others. Influence strategies can range from reliance on position and power, to education, encouragement and collaboration. When you influence effectively you increase trust, support and ownership for your priorities. When you influence ineffectively you increase mistrust, intimidation and resentment.
You can improve your leadership effectiveness if you know when to modify your style, understand that situations your style works best in, and when it may prove ineffective.

 Hot Buttons

We all deal with conflict in our organizations. It’s not that we disagree, but how we disagree.  Being able to handle conflict effectively provides significant return on investment in terms of outcomes, employee engagement and relationship quality.  This session applies the Conflict Dynamics Profile (CDP), an assessment instrument measuring conflict behavior to increase self-awareness and improve conflict management skills. The CDP is unlike any other assessment tool in that it focuses specifically on conflict behaviors, rather than styles. It helps individuals and teams understand how they respond to conflict, what triggers (hot buttons) can escalate conflict, and how to manage conflict more effectively.
Effective conflict management improves creativity, enhances decision quality, and helps implementation. When people are able to robustly debate issues, one idea can lead to another and generate new understandings that would otherwise have been missed. Decision quality is improved when ideas are rigorously vetted and challenged. Flaws that might have been missed when people avoid debating issues are found and optimal solutions are developed. When people have taken part in this debate, they are more likely to support implementation of a particular solution even though it might not be their preferred one. This is because they have felt that their ideas have been considered and that they have been involved in seeking a solution. 
Employee engagement is critical.  People don’t typically leave companies; they leave supervisors and colleagues.  If they stay and are distressed, some will respond by staying away. This avoiding behavior can take the form of absenteeism which hurts overall productivity. Perhaps even more problematic is presenteeism, where the employee comes to work but isn’t effectively because they are obsessing about the problems, talking with colleagues about it, and avoiding interactions with those with whom they are having the conflict.

Hot Button Scales:

  • Unreliable – Those who are unreliable, miss deadlines and cannot be counted on.
  • Overly-Analytical – Those who are perfectionists, over-analyze things and focus too much on minor issues.
  • Unappreciative – Those who fail to give credit to others or seldom praise good performance.
  • Aloof – Those who isolate themselves, do not seek input from others or are hard to approach.
  • Micro-Managing – Those who constantly monitor and check up on the work of others.
  • Self-Centered – Those who are self-centered or believe they are always correct.
  • Abrasive – Those who are arrogant, sarcastic and abrasive.
  • Untrustworthy – Those who exploit others, take undeserved credit or cannot be trusted.
  • Hostile – Those who lose their tempers, become angry, or yell at others.

Constructive Behavioral Scales:

  • Perspective Taking – Putting yourself in the other person’s position and trying to understand that person’s point of view.
  • Creating Solutions – Brainstorming with the other person, asking questions, and trying to create solutions to the problem.
  • Expressing Emotions – Talking honestly with the other person and expressing your thoughts and feelings.
  • Reaching Out – Reaching out to the other person, making the first move, and trying to make amends.
  • Reflective Thinking – Analyzing the situation, weighing the pros and cons, and thinking about the best response.
  • Delay Responding – Waiting things out, letting matters settle down, or taking a “time out” when emotions are running high.
  • Adapting – Staying flexible, and trying to make the best of the situation.

Destructive Behavioral Scales:

  • Winning at All Costs – Arguing vigorously for your own position and trying to win at all costs.
  • Displaying Anger – Expressing anger, raising your voice, and using harsh, angry words.
  • Demeaning Others – Laughing at the other person, ridiculing the other’s ideas, and using sarcasm.
  • Retaliating – Obstructing the other person, retaliating against the other, and trying to get revenge.
  • Avoiding – Avoiding or ignoring the other person, and acting distant and aloof.
  • Yielding – Giving in to the other person in order to avoid further conflict.
  • Hiding Emotions – Concealing your true emotions even though feeling upset.
  • Self-Criticizing – Replaying the incident over in your mind, and criticizing yourself for not handling it better.