Leadership Skills Course: Strategies for Developing a Leadership Identity

Leadership. Inspiring and enabling organisations to create and realise optimal value.

Learn Leadership the smart way with Leadership courses at CCE, The University of Sydney.

This leadership skills course is designed for leaders and emerging leaders. In the course, you’ll gain awareness of who you are as a leader, as well as deepening and broadening your leadership identity. You’ll learn to inspire people who report to you – through your voice, body language, words and message structure. You’ll learn to carry yourself and look like a leader. You’ll learn to sound like a leader. Your presence will improve. And you’ll get honest feedback, delivered in supportive environment, from Michael Kelly and your fellow participants.

Outcomes

Upon completion of this leadership skills training course, you will have:

• Developed your identity as a person who is a leader.
• Improved how you listen and are perceived as a listener.
• Learned to speak, use your voice and use your body movement and gesture – like a leader.
• Developed more leadership competency and inspiration.
• Reflected on the leaders you’ve ‘loved’, on those you’ve detested and have written your leadership identity ‘manifesto’.

Content

This leadership skills training course includes the following topics:

• You’re always sending impressions.
• If you don’t believe in the messenger, you won’t believe the message.
• How to handle tough, leadership situations.
• ‘Owning and occupying’ physical space.
• What is a good leader?
• Why is there a gap between the rhetoric of good leadership and the reality of leadership at the coal face? – and what to do about it.

Delivery Style

Seminar/workshop
This leadership skills training course is one of a trilogy of courses that Michael Kelly conducts for CCE. It repeats the core principles and reinforces the content of the courses: Presentation Skills Course: Plan and Deliver Memorable Presentations and Listen and Speak Under Pressure Course.

One process of the course involves ‘repeated practice attempts’ of a technique, followed by feedback. These practice attempts can seem artificial to some people. Michael’s field work with his top performing clients indicates these practice attempts with feedback are critical to improving his client’s behaviour in live interactions. In effect, these top performers focus and care more about improving, than about any artificialness involved in the practice attempts.

Extras

Watch Michael Kelly’s Nine Network Australia live analysis, entitled Body language expert grades Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump’s performance in today’s presidential debate. Included are video grabs of a Donald Trump v Hillary Clinton debate, and an interview after the debate with Karl Stefanovic.

Getting the most from your course attendance

You’re making an investment in time, and money (if you’re sponsoring yourself), by enrolling in this course. Here are three suggestions to help you reap more benefit from your attendance:

1. Consider what work colleague/friend you could teach an idea/technique to. This means, arrange a five minute catch-up appointment with a work colleague/friend the next work day after your course to teach that person, the most memorable idea/techniques you learned in the course. This ‘teaching’ will help you retain and embed the idea/technique. Until you can teach an idea/technique to other people you don’t really know it yourself.
2. Plan to participate/volunteer. In all of Michael Kelly’s courses he offers various opportunities, throughout the day, for participants to have additional attempts at practising techniques/interaction types. The people that volunteer for these opportunities get more worth from the course. So come prepared to participate and volunteer.
3. Before the course day, write down in one sentence or phrase a specific thing/behaviour/attitude etc. that you’d like to exit the day with. You’ll get the opportunity to share this thing/behaviour/attitude at the start of the day.