Values Based Leadership Development

2 day workshop program

Values based leadership development recognises the pivotal role that our values play in all our actions. Within a framework anchored by your personal values profile, this program helps you develop the leadership skills shared by today’s successful enterprises.

The ‘command and control’ model of leadership is no longer effective in today’s business environment. Leadership models used by today’s successful enterprises recognise a different set of skills; intuitive thinking, being comfortable with change, advanced communication, listening skills, disengaging competitive and adversarial practices, dissolving negative judgment, fostering greater creativity and innovation. And most importantly, creating new leaders.

Values

Our Values are the most significant contributor to our behaviours. Every behaviour and action we take voluntarily is a reflection of our values. Serious discord occurs when we have to act in a manner that is inconsistent with our values. This is a highly prevalent cause of dysfunction within organisations.

Values are our subconscious and conscious motivators. For many people they are unconscious until surfaced. Bringing Values from the unconscious to the conscious is liberating. Why? So long as our values remain “unconscious” motivators, we are living our life on automatic pilot. If on the other hand we would prefer to take over the controls that navigate our life and move our values into conscious awareness, we can then explore the priority we currently place on these values and through a refreshing process, reorder our priorities to steer or life along a new path.

“Success in the knowledge economy comes to those who know themselves – their strengths, their values and how they perform best”

Peter Drucker

“Leadership is setting the values for the organisation, the underlying philosophies of the organisation and the way one treats people”

Will Delat
Merck Sharp and Dohme

“Values are the constructs or concepts that we hold as important because of our beliefs about how life “ought” to be lived”

The AVI (A Values Inventory) Instrument

A unique feature of this program is the AVI Profile. AVI is questionnaire-based instrument that calibrates personal and team values drawing from an “inventory “of 128 Values that relate to all aspects of a person’s being.

The report identifies clusters of values important to the respondent showing the relative strength of each in three time dimensions; Foundation values, (usually those formed in earlier years), Vision Values (where you are heading), and Focus Values (where the other two meet. That is, your present focus.

A heavy weighting on foundation values identifies that a person is placing a lot of effort into satisfying values that as an adult may be less than useful. These can be energy-draining. A concentration on Focus (or current) and Vision values can be energy-giving.

By identifying ones’ values profile, strategies can be developed to satisfy important foundation values, with far less expenditure of time and energy, allowing fruitful focus on the future

Values and Leadership

The response profile also provides a map of the participant’s world view and leadership style. As values are directly related to leadership style, understanding how we lead and appreciating the choices we can make in leadership style, critically impact our relationship with those we are leading.

The Values-based leadership program

Welcome to The Macquarie Institute values-based leadership program.

Why leadership?

Effective leadership today requires more than technical and operational knowledge in your chosen field.

Our business structures have changed dramatically. Command and control management styles are increasingly less effective. In our global network economy where it is the individual employee who is connected, the rule book has gone and organisations depend on the individuals and teams working with their own initiative within the framework of an agreed organisational purpose and direction.

In this environment, the key role of the leader is to create the environment where people can derive the motivation to perform. The personal skills required for this role are those of inspiration and communication. Collins called this “Level 5 Leadership”

“Leadership can be conceptualised as an engagement of followers through actions guided by a vision based on personal values and purposes. Leadership is exercised within an "in depth" understanding of the context in which the leader and followers are situated and is dependent on two sets of personal skills - communication and motivation.”

From the University of South Australia
Post Graduate Certificate in Leadership

The Purpose of the Program

To expand your leadership choices though an integration of practical skills in thinking, learning and communicating, built on a foundation of Values.

The Outcome

Rapid enhancement of your leadership capabilities with practical skills for immediate use.

The Program

The program is tailored to a client’s specific needs drawing from a set of skills, tools, models and concepts that are then integrated to present a seamless learning experience.

A typical program is two workshop days.

Stage 1 Introduction and preparation

• Participants are welcomed to the program. Its purpose and outcomes are communicated
• Each participant completes two questionnaires for profiling:
  o Leadership Development Values profile, resulting in a detailed analysis and graphic    display of their core values
  o HBDI (Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument) which identifies Thinking    Preferences
• Each of these instruments results in both individual and team profiles
• Several articles are distributed to advance participants’ understanding of leadership
• Instructions are provided about logistics of the program
• In most cases, The Macquarie Institute will conduct interviews with representative participants to further our understanding of the perceived needs. This considerably strengthens program delivery and outcomes
  

Stage 2: First workshop session, in which participants will:

• Clarify the purpose and expected results of the program
• Discuss the nature of leadership and the philosophic assumptions of the program
• Understand the relevant and new knowledge of the human mind and how it relates to many of the tools, skills and instruments used in the program
• Consider the program’s mental models; the Leaders Telescope, the Oak Tree.
• Commence development of personal purpose and vision statements
• Commence understanding of personal Values profiles
• Understand from this profile one’s world view and personal leadership style
• Enjoy a fun experience which illuminates their thinking preferences and how these relate to behaviour
• Calibrate a range of personal communication preferences
• Review the nature of motivation and the role of the leaders within a team
• Write four action papers to advance this learning into practical applications
• Review achievement against expectations
• Reflect on each day’s learning with a ‘musical” review
• Provide written feedback of the day to the convenors

Stage 3: Second workshops session, in which participants will:

• Review learning from Stage 1
• Share success and progress from Stage 1
• Review agenda for Stage 2
• Review additional expectations
• Advance the writing of their personal purpose and vision statements
• Understand the power of the words you use as a leader and consider their Internal Explanatory Style
• Calibrate their tendency to be optimistic or pessimistic and consider the options
• Enjoy a powerful experience to advance their skills as a listener
• Expand understanding of their Values profile and how to develop strategies to shift energy to more advantageous values
• Review the Group Values profile and how they can align personal values to organisational values
• Explore organisational purpose and direction, and prepare draft statements of Vision, Purpose, Values, Positioning, Core competency and Key relationships
• Enjoy several experiences to deepen communication skills
• Further development of strategy papers to develop practical application of the learning
• Question time
• Review achievement of expectations
• Provide written feedback of the day to the convenors

Leadership Style Profiles

Two key profiles will be generated for each individual and the team as a whole

1. Values-based leadership profile

Participants will receive a personal Values Profile calibrating their core values in a way that provides a practical basis for viewing their style of leadership within a model of several styles They will also appreciate the merits of modifying values and in turn, the way they lead. This model is based on the work of Collins and Chippendale (New Wisdom ll) and utilises an inventory of 128 core values.

In intra-company programs, the shared values of the participating team are calibrated and displayed to identify the common values shared by that group. These can then be developed into a working set of organisational behaviours that reflect the values of the leadership team

2. Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument (HBDI)

Participants will receive a personal profile that calibrates their thinking preferences across a whole-brain model. This profile, and an understanding of the behavioural clues that identify the preferences of others, has vast application across business and personal life.

The HBDI Team profile is invaluable knowledge for many types of team activity within the organisation

Theory versus practise

The mix between theory and practical application can be adjusted in program development depending on the outcomes desired. A program focusing on practical application would see the team applying the learning to relevant current business issues.

Validation

The AVI Values Inventory offered through The Macquarie Institute was developed by Zygon Associates based on The Hall-Tonna Inventory of Values. This is built on four premises:

• Values are an important component of human existence and can be identified and measured;
• Values are described through words;
• Values are learned and developed through assimilation; and
• Values are modified and shaped by our world-view.

Values are an integral part of human existence; as such they relate to every aspect of life. Values can be viewed as priorities that relate to a persons’ behaviour; specifically, they are the priorities one is motivated to act upon.Over a twenty-year period of research into the nature of values, Brian Hall and Benjamin Tonna came to identify 128 values that encompass the critical values that have the potential to appear in the life long growth and development of an individual. Specifically, they concluded:

• Values are an expression of concepts (i.e. personal constructs) that represent dynamic clusters of energy.
• Values are described by those words in a language that convey significant personal meaning. This meaning carries with it a certain psychological energy that activates a person’s behaviour.
• Values are learned and can be measured.