School of Leadership based on social capital building

1st session Workshop of interpersonal skills

The role of the workshop is to enhance emotional intelligence skills, improve communication skills and increase the self-awareness of the emotions experienced in relationships with other people. These are basic skills without which it is impossible to master one’s own leadership style.

Group activities proposed by the trainer during the training enable the participants to experiment, seek new ways of reacting in relationships with people and with the group. Thanks to that, they broaden the spectrum of their abilities and open to new experiences.

We seek answers to the questions: What do I experience when I establish relationships? How does another person react to that?

2nd session: Values of the leader who builds social capital

Social capital and new leadership. What determines the quality of leadership?  A simulation game enabling the participants to experience various expectations about the role of manager. A reflection on areas of manager’s influence, their responsibilities. Discussion with reference to the Leadership Challenge research program.

What does it mean to me to be a leader, what values are crucial for me? Tools for building consistency and reliability when working with people. 4 pillars of leadership: good relationships, reliability, vision, skills.

Impact of relationships on efficient performance of tasks and pursuit of goals by employees. My team’s map.

We seek answers to the questions: How clear and consistent am I in what I think, say, and do? How does my attitude, values, convictions, and actions influence the attitude, engagement, and proactivity of my team?

3rd session: Teamwork mechanisms based on SmileUrbo^TM

During the third session, we will encourage the participants to have a closer look at teamwork mechanisms and team dysfunctions, which might make team existence pointless.

The leaders participate in Smile Urbo^TM, a simulation game which won World Summit Youth Award, a UN contest for the best educational project in the world, in 2015. They play the roles of members of a village council seeking solutions that are optimal for the community in an extremely difficult situation, while trying to satisfy their own interests.

We seek answers to the questions: What standards and behaviors build trust in the team and which ones destroy it? Can trust be restored and how to do it? How to take care of the performance and psychological security of team members at the same time?

4th session: My management philosophy

Ethos, Pathos, Logos. What team do I want to build and on what values do I want to rely? How to speak to inspire and engage. Training. The participants seek answers to the questions: With what team do I want to work? What standards must prevail in a team so that its members can behave this way? What do I want to do as the leader to model and implement the desired standards? How clear and consistent am I in what I think, say, and do?

Working by the drama method. During the interactive play titled “Company”, the participants have the opportunity to monitor the consequences occurring on the company and each employee levels when there is no support from managers, the number of conversations about difficulties is insufficient and the ones which are held do not disclose the true standpoints and emotions. The participants can influence the story of the main character by replacing her on stage and trying out their own behavior strategies.

We seek answers to the questions: Who are other people to me: a source of solutions or problems? Am I able to see the perspective of my colleagues?

5th session: Training of managerial conversations

Training with a sparring partner: a workshop of skills. The participants will prepare for and practice talks with their employees while taking into account their skills, engagement, and tasks to be performed.

They will conduct supportive, corrective, instructional, emotion-related, coaching conversations.

They seek answers to the questions: How to create conditions for a good conversation? When to talk? How to prepare? How to choose words to ensure that the conversation builds trust, reinforces relationships, and supports engagement? What conversation leaves a good impression?

Analysis of the consequences of absence of honest day-to-day conversations with colleagues

6th session: Trust capital

During this session, the participants experience the difference between bonding social capital (including only the immediate environment and excluding what is other, foreign, new) and bridging social capital (based on loose, distributed social networks and generalized trust). They will develop strategic thinking, which enables them to share resources and implement innovations in the organization.

They will look at various Graves’ Values Levels in the context of organization management style: from Orange to Turquoise. They will ask themselves questions about the role of leader in the VUCA world.

We seek answers to the questions: How to build trust going beyond one’s own team? How to support transfer of knowledge and skills between various areas in the company? How to develop innovative solutions based on distributed resources?

7th session: Barriers to social capital building in the organization

Dimensions of diversity, mechanisms of exclusion in the organization. Where do unconscious prejudices come from? Concealed mechanisms of excluding non-representative groups. Positioning by the leader: from rejection to recognition.

Barriers to social capital building in the organization arising from the national culture, feudal management style, prejudices and stereotypes, which prevent people from drawing on diversity.

Collaborative leadership building. We seek answers to the questions: What practices permit overcoming barriers to the development of social capital in the organization? How to effectively recruit, retain, and motivate a diversified team and organize its work?

8th session: Extensive networking

Networking: relationships with others as the capital I contribute to the company. Presence in social media, establishing relationships at brief meetings, conferences, workshops as forms of building extensive networks of superficial contacts.

Storytelling as a social currency allowing one to be a value ambassador and build a network more effectively.

Drawing on his own experience, Mariusz Szczygieł will tell us about the benefits of networking.

We seek answers to the questions: What story do I tell about myself, my company, my values? How do I want to be remembered? How to use the opportunities to network?

9th session: End of the School of Leadership

Day 1: I myself in change, guiding the team through change, change management in the organization. Summary of all leadership skills related to social capital building. This will be an opportunity to experience the traps involved in acting in the spirit of social capital and to develop methods of protection against risk.

Day 2: Summary of the sum of implementation activities taken by the participants between sessions in their organizations. A presentation session, discussion of the essential conclusions, celebration of successes.

We seek answers to the questions: What progress have I made as leader? What progress has my organization made? What barriers have I encountered and how have I overcome them? What benefits coming from the new way of acting do I see?