Leadership Pipeline Transition Program for Leaders of Leaders
The Leading Leaders transition program is uniquely based on the leadership first principles for leaders of leaders as outlined in the Leadership Pipeline book. It is an intensive program that gives the leader insights, tools and practical training in how to fully step up and into the leadership role as a manager of managers.
The program clarifies the specific responsibilities and performance expectations for leaders of leaders, and it ensures that the leader develops the right work values, time application and skills in order to be successful in the role. After this mid-level leadership program, the leader will have a clear perspective on how they uniquely create value as a leader of leaders, and they will have learned to appreciate their leadership work.
Why Invest in Developing Leaders of Leaders?
The leader of leaders’ role is the most neglected role across organizations. Part of the problem is the false assumption that there is little difference between the role of leader of others and the role of leader of leaders. Hence, an experienced leader of others should supposedly be able to easily step into the much more significant leader of leaders’ role.
However, this false assumption is exactly what causes many companies to struggle in executing their business strategies and causes most companies to struggle in building their internal pipeline of qualified leaders.
Middle Management are the those in your workforce who secure productivity. They tie the organization together upwards, sideways and downwards. They are the ones who select first time managers and develop first time managers. They role model good leadership to the vast majority of the leaders in the organization – namely the leaders of others.
If you do not get this right in your organization and fail to support your leaders of leaders in transitioning into their role, you will end up continuously trying to fix problems at the top of your organization which, in reality, could have been fixed by acknowledging the significance of the leader of leaders’ role.
Target Audience
The target audience is leaders of leaders, meaning leaders with at least two or three leaders reporting to them. They may in total have between fifteen and one hundred people in their organization. They may be leaders in a white or blue collar environment. The important thing is, that they have other leaders reporting to them.
The program has a documented and validated track record of creating lasting change in terms of knowledge, attitude and behavior for both newly appointed leaders of leaders and for leaders of leaders with five or ten years of experience in the role.
Accordingly, most organizations design programs to capture the broad audience for leaders of leaders. Though, some companies are very large, and they may decide to deploy a separate program for what they call “organizational leaders”. These are leaders of leaders running organizations with +100 employees.
The measurable impact of the program does not differ based on the participants’ experience. This may sound surprising. However, time itself does not help leaders make their transition. Often to the contrary. If leaders are not supported in their transition within the first 18 months after promotion, if they are not coached to find new ways of getting success, then they often end up going back to previous ways of finding success – namely, operating as if everyone in their organization reports directly to them.
Action Learning
Everything is based on the participant’s own day-to-day challenges, and in addition we will include the participant’s direct manager in the learning process.
Instead of the participants bringing the training back to the job, the participants bring their job into the training.
The integration of everyday life is so strong that participants often feel that participation in the program is like being at work rather than being on a program. Consequently, learning from the program is directly and immediately applicable when the participants return to their job.
Become a Certified Leader of Leaders
Upon completion of the middle management development program, the participant can be registered as certified leaders of leaders and they are eligible to enroll in the LPI alumni forum for leaders of leaders which secures continuous learning many years after the program.
In order to register as certified leader of leaders, the participant must have at least six months working experience as leader of leaders.
What Our Participants Say
"This program helped me understand how best to lead through my team leaders rather than trying to lead everyone directly"
"I will start treating my team leaders as leaders"
“I never thought of myself as a leader of leaders. I was just leading 28 people. I realize how that mindset has been blocking my performance”
“My focus should be paving the road for my team leaders by spending more time breaking down silos across the organization”
“My frustrations about being in the middle of the organization has been replaced by an appreciation of how I create value being in the middle of the organization”
From Leader of Others to Leader of Leaders
As something unique in the market, the leading leaders transition program will address all three key elements in the transition namely work values, time application and skills. Especially our unique ability to support leaders of leaders changing their work values is what creates the lasting impact of the leadership training programs and skill development.
Below we have illustrated the key transition elements and leadership skills for a leader of leaders.
Program Content
Proven Learning Impact
We have a road-tested leading leaders program with a long track-record in terms of proven learning impact and skill development. We will build on our track record and tailor this leadership development program to your organization’s specific needs and, at a minimum, include:
Your human resource tools and processes
Clear link to your business needs
Specific content or exercises of your preference
Your company values
Your leadership model
Links to other leadership initiatives
Typical Transition Issues
In this mid-level management training, we will support leaders overcoming the typical transition issues for leaders of leaders. As you will probably notice, these are behaviors you also see with more experienced leaders of leaders.
Fails to develop their direct reports into effective leaders
Holds direct reports responsible for technical proficiency only
Follows up directly on individual contributors instead of following up through the leader of others
Focuses primarily on own unit and does not value building relationships and working across the value chain
Is unable to lead both leaders of others and individual contributors
Key Topics in the Leading Leaders Training Program
Below, we have illustrated some of the core content and leadership competencies of a typical leading leaders transition program. As you will notice, the entire program ties directly into the job that needs to get done for a leader of leaders. The final content and learning flow is designed in collaboration.
Program Flow
We have a core four-day classroom program, but most organizations use a solution where they design a learning journey combining classroom days with different digitalized and on-line solutions.
Our mobile learning platform can support the program participant throughout the manager journey and thus support an immediate application of new work values, time application and skills.
As something unique, our mobile learning platform can also involve the participants’ direct manager throughout the learning journey. This will secure the full engagement of the middle manager in the learning process, which is one of the most important factors in embedding learning from management training programs.
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