Counting Down My Top 10 Favorite Learning Experiences and Sharing Advice for New L&D Professionals
- 5 days ago
- 3 min read
#4: Leadership 101 for First-Time People Leaders
Recently I wrapped up an article series focusing on the four essential elements of impactful learning experiences. When facilitators execute these elements successfully, learners leave their training sessions feeling informed, engaged, entertained, and inspired.
I was eager to author another series but was drawing a blank on a topic. As I began reflecting upon my early years in the postsecondary classroom and more recent years in corporate training spaces, several learning experiences stood out to me.
While a late night talk show host gig is probably not in my future, I decided to compile a list of my top 10 favorite learning experiences.
I hope that by sharing my work, I spark your imagination, inspire you to experiment with new approaches, and encourage you to pitch audacious ideas for your learning projects. At the end of each article, I‘ll offer a few suggestions for you to consider.
#4: Leadership 101 for First-Time People Leaders
I designed, developed, and facilitated this 3-hour virtual session. It was Part 1 of a larger cohort-based leadership development program for newly hired or recently promoted first-time people leaders in the organization. The program ran concurrently with complementary sessions that covered HR-related responsibilities and focused on the technical sides of their roles as managers.
The session consisted of four topical segments:
Segment 1: Differentiating Between Leadership and Management
Segment 2: Recognizing the Traits of Successful Leaders
Segment 3: Understanding Your Leadership Style
Segment 4: Creating a Leadership Brand Statement
Why This Experience Makes My Top 10
Reason #1: We kicked off the session with an interesting discussion of how leadership differs from management.
Too often facilitators make the mistake of diving immediately into the “meat and potatoes” of their content. Why not use those crucial early minutes of your session to instead pique your learners’ interest and jumpstart engagement with a thought-provoking question?
I started this session by asking the following question:
What does it mean to be an effective leader at our organization?
Recall the participants consisted of newly hired or recently promoted first-time people leaders. Without the benefit of substantive leadership experience at the organization to draw upon, how learners responded to this question would likely reveal fascinating insights. Over the next 4–5 minutes of light discussion, learners shared their perspectives on the line and typed their comments in the chat window.
I suggested to the group that before we could begin to articulate what it meant to be an effective leader at our organization, we first needed to understand the difference between a manager and a leader. I explained that although those terms are frequently used interchangeably, there are important nuances associated with a manager’s role and a leader’s role.
I explained both roles are essential to operating a successful organization. And that, realistically, there is no such thing as someone acting in a manager capacity 100 percent of the time or in a leader capacity 100 percent of the time. There are aspects of what they do each day which fall into one category or the other.
Depending upon the tasks they were working on or who they were working with, the session participants would likely find themselves putting on and taking off their manager and leader “hats” numerous times throughout a typical workday.
Free Association Activity and Review
In a free association activity, I asked learners to envision wearing their manager hat. What specific characteristics might they exhibit? What kinds of tasks might they engage in? And what specific responsibilities might they have?
As learners contributed to the discussion, we noted the common themes which emerged. Afterward, I reviewed the six main attributes of a manager for the purposes of our session. Among these were using a directive approach to ensure work is completed and following systems, structures, protocols, processes, and procedures.
Next, I asked learners to take off their hypothetical manager hat and put on their leader hat. And we repeated the activity. I shared the six main attributes of a leader. These included being a visionary and thinking about how to achieve long-term goals and using their influence to build excitement and achieve buy-in.
We concluded this segment by reviewing a table comparing and contrasting the roles of a manager and leader. The table summarized what each do, their primary attributes, and their unique approaches. This was helpful to dispel misconceptions about what each role does and how it functions within an organization.
This opening discussion, which began with a simple question, was instrumental in setting the table for the remainder of the session.
Read the remainder of this article for free on Medium here.
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