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Leadership development

Leadership Development

OFA’s principle of leadership development begins with the belief that anyone taking action or even thinking about taking action for the first time can become someone who creates change within their community. The central premise behind our leadership development trainings is that in order for the progressive movement to create long-term change, we needed to invest in effective community leaders embedded in and from the communities they are advocating for. These trainings allow you to develop volunteers into stronger leaders, with topics including our ‘fellows leaders’ program and materials, time management resources, conflict resolution, and emotional intelligence.

Fellows Leaders Training

Defining leadership

How we define leadership will serve as the lens through which participants will view their role as a leader. As they begin to develop new leadership skills, they will need to challenge their own assumptions on how they view leadership and where it can take them.

 

Emotional intelligence

On its own, pure technical knowledge rarely makes anyone a great leader. Instead, leaders must also know how to respond to situations and emotions in ways that are constructive to the parties involved. This session reviews the 12 competencies of emotional intelligence of psychologist and author, Daniel Goleman. It dives into the author and psychologist Susan David’s introduction and analysis of the concept of emotional agility. Participants will focus on how to intentionally address emotions, rather than becoming stuck in them or letting them rule our decision-making processes.

 

Servant leadership

Leadership is often characterized as being strong, decisive, and directive—but Robert K. Greenleaf (Center for Servant Leadership) would argue that “The servant-leader is a servant first … they view their leadership through a frame of service to those they are leading.” Participants will look into how they can best serve their teams and communities by focusing primarily on the growth and well-being of the communities they serve.

 

Facilitation best practices

This session discusses what good facilitation entails and how to internalize content. Participants learn how much time they will need to practice leading a training, and go through key ways to make sure their audience feels safe and heard—with the ultimate goal of building community among their teams.

 

Transformational leadership

To truly push a team to greatness, participants will look at a powerful style of leadership where team leaders connect the motivations of individual team members to the collective identity of the team. They will work on identifying challenges with their team members and create a vision to meet those challenges.

 

Group dynamics

In this session, participants will look at their role as a leader and different group dynamics that may play out, particularly as their group begins to form its own leaders, followers, “rebels”, mediators, or even scapegoats. This will help them to understand the potential fault lines within their group and how it is developing.

 

Defining conflict

Conflicts can arise whenever team members move past the phase of just being polite and start actually working together towards a common goal. Participants may find several situations in their own life where conflict has hindered the work they and a group are doing. How do the parties involved handle the conflict? What are the types of outcomes we can expect when conflicts arise? How do our expectations affect our ability to resolve these conflicts?

 

Conflict resolution

Participants will look at how to move those involved in conflict towards a shared understanding. The ultimate goal is to present those involved with creative choices that will lead them to resolve the conflict in a way that helps to meet everyone’s needs.

 

Situational leadership

In this session, participants will learn about how to individualize coaching and management approaches with each of their team members. They will analyze each team member based on how much directive or supportive behavior they need to give to a team member—ultimately determining whether to be more directive, coach, support, or delegate with the team member as a management tool.

 

Effective delegation

An effective management skill is delegation, but it is important to understand how and when to delegate to have the most impact. This session explores the traits of the characteristics of great management and explores the 5 Ws of effective delegations: What, who, when, where, and why.

 

Project management

This session explores how to manage complex projects and how to work with others to achieve successful outcomes. Participants will learn the definition and challenges of project management, discuss the habits of strong project managers, and acquire new tools to manage projects. Notable in this series is The Management Center’s project management framework: MOCHA.

 

Conducting effective interviews

In this session, participants will learn what to do before, during, and after an interview with a potential team member. They will look at the key traits of a good candidate, interviewer best practices, and their ability to evaluate candidates outside of their resume.

 

Remote Management

Remote management is inherently different than in-person management in that it requires more intention to ensure that a team has the information, direction, and support they need to do a good job. This session explores what remote management is, how it differs from in-person management, and best practices and resources to manage a team remotely.

 

Coaches Huddle

Spring 2017 Coaches Huddle: Management/coaching

This is an in-person training session that covers fostering a culture with teams, encouraging and challenging team members, situational leadership, check-ins, managing project managers, and planning orientation events. The activities included in this session are meant to be done via the workbook and discussion.

 

Fall 2017 Coaches Huddle: Leadership

This is an in-person training session that includes an interactive leadership simulation activity, explores archetypes of leadership, and includes an “open-space” activity to discuss challenges with other participants.