What We’ve Learned from 77 Participants in Our Leadership Programs – Part 3 (Improvements)

We recently conducted an analysis of the impact of our leadership programs. Here's what participants had to say about the impact for them personally.
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By Chally Kacelnik

This is the final part of our series about what we’ve learned from data from a sample pool of program participants, as part of our efforts to continually improve what we do at LKS Quaero. In What We’ve Learned from 77 Participants in Our Leadership Programs – Part 1, I I took you through some data about how they’ve changed and developed as leaders, and what’s been particularly working well for them and otherwise. In Part 2, we talked about the data concerning the areas of least and greatest change, and how that connected back to what we looked at in Part 1. We’re going to end with some qualitative data: what participants have to say about what’s changed for them and what they’ve achieved as a result of their leadership program.

At the end of each program, we ask each participant a few questions.

  • What are my proudest achievements from this program?
  • What changes have I made to the way I lead as a result of this program?
  • What changes have I made to the way I manage work as a result of this program?

I really enjoy hearing people’s responses to these questions. Sometimes there’s a really specific change they’ve made that’s improved safety or saved their organisation a lot of expenditure. Sometimes they’ve used the program tools to accomplish something that was overwhelmingly difficult in the past, which has built confidence.

For our purposes, we’ve collated the response themes. Here are the improvement themes that emerged from the feedback we received from the 77 participants in our sample group.

Better leadership

  • Participants are better able to empower their teams to undertake work rather than taking it all on themselves
  • They’ve improved their capacity to connect their work and the work of their team back to purpose and organisational vision
  • They’ve gained confidence and a feeling of professionalism as leaders and individuals
  • They’re more cognisant of their team’s needs, listening to them, and getting their input
  • They’ve been able to really understand the work of a leader and execute it, being less hands on

Better interactions

  • Participants’ communication skills have improved, enabling them to meet challenges (or assign tasks) and achieve positive and productive outcomes
  • They’ve improved their public speaking skills
  • They are better able to set expectations
  • They’re pleased with the opportunity provided by the program to build relationships people in other parts of the organisation, so they can work with others to meet organisational goals more effectively
  • They’ve gained better understanding of others through values and emotional intelligence, fostering better interactions

Better work

  • Participants have improved their time prioritisation and task management skills
  • They’ve learned to manage work (their own and others’) using a much clearer process
  • They’re now doing work strategically rather than trying to do everything and please everyone
  • They are preparing themselves well for work they have to do by connecting it back to the bigger organisational picture and systems requirements

Better application

  • Participants have jumped right in to applying their learning and program models back at work
  • They’re reflecting on the impact of symbols and behaviours (two of what we call tools of leadership) at work
  • They’re pleased to have gained new tools and skills that they’ve been able to apply – being able to take the time and effort to learn was itself a positive experience

What’s the main take away from the data we’ve looked at in this analysis, overall? I think there are actually two:

  • LKS Quaero’s leadership programs demonstrably achieve what they set out to do: support leaders to develop to a consistent, positive standard
  • People at every organisational level are going to have a more positive and productive time at work when their leaders enable them to link the work of their role back up to the organisation’s vision and planning

We’re so pleased that LKS Quaero’s programming is having such a positive impact for participants and their organisations. We’ll keep monitoring the results so we can keep doing better. For now, that’s the end of this series on what our program participants have had to teach us. Thanks for coming on the journey with us.

At LKS Quaero, we support leaders to develop to a consistent, excellent standard. For more information, visit us at lksquaero.com or follow us on LinkedIn and Facebook.

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