Available courses

Communication and Other Soft Skills



Communication and Other Soft Skills

Communication is the number one soft skill people expect in today’s world. If you want to make a big difference in your leadership career, develop transforming communication skills. Leaders who can effectively communicate in many different ways create energy and harmony. This LeaderPod will help you hone those skills.

About Communication and Other Soft Skills LeaderPod

Leaders need to be able to effectively communicate using a variety of mechanisms. From texting, to email, to a phone call, to a meeting, to a group gathering, to a video chat, the capacity for a leader to lead is expanded or limited by their ability to communicate and their skillful use of communication techniques. 

In this LeaderPod you’ll gain practical experience in skills related to communication and other soft skills.

A Few of the Skills You Gain

  • You will increase communication effectiveness as a leader by recognizing the types of communication that are needed.
  • You will be able to create the environment for successful communicative organizational relationships.
  • You will begin to acquire tactical and strategic capabilities for presenting to small and large groups, and increase the probability for a specific pre-planned action to result from the presentation.
  • You will recognize the importance of leadership competencies and soft skills, and identify specific areas for personal improvement in your overall leadership capability.
  • You will learn how to actively take a vision into the organization so that the vision becomes a catalyst for organizational energy and achievement.

Motivating and Inspiring Others


Motivating and Inspiring Others

You play a unique role in facilitating organizational success by helping your people tap into their motivations. Leaders who understand what motivates their people, will accelerate strategic outcomes and think about what that means for the business and your team. Lead from the “why” and you’ll see great success.

About Motivating and Inspiring Others LeaderPod

The best modern era leaders help their people tap into their own personal motivations in order to perform at their highest levels, which is both personally and professionally satisfying.

Understanding what motivates a person is a basic key to being an effective leader.

While there may be similarities between the people we lead and their motivations, deep down each person is unique. Getting people to follow our leadership will depend on how well we understand our own “why,” the company “why,” and our people’s personal “why.”

A Few of the Skills You Gain

  • You will gain a fundamental understanding of key theories in the evolution of management thought on motivation and to look for ways to apply the underlying principles of motivation in our leadership efforts.
  • You will gain a deeper appreciation for the purpose of work in the lives of the people we lead and consider ways that we as leaders can build greater meaning into the work we design.
  • You will deepen your reflection about why people follow leaders.
  • You will personally explore your own “why,” the “why” of your organization, and the “why” of individuals on your team.
  • You will begin to develop a deeper insight into how a leader can use their position to help people reach higher levels of performance.

Empowering and Delegating



Empowering and Delegating

It’s not as simple as saying, “you’re empowered.” In fact, that statement will cost you leadership credibility and social power unless you understand how to empower. Leaders who rise to the top understand how to empower and delegate. In this LeaderPod you’ll learn how to get good at doing both. Your social capital will soar.

About Empowering and Delegating LeaderPod

There is a Difference Between Empower and Delegate

Empower

Empowerment is a fundamental leadership skill. It is important that leaders give consideration to who is empowered and to what degree they are empowered. In this LeaderPod we present a simple but powerful recipe to understand what empowerment is and how to empower others.

Delegate

Delegating is an art and there are fundamental elements that need to be in place for proper delegation to occur. When leaders delegate effectively their teams perform at a higher level and the leader is able to scale their efforts because more people are involved in important and trusted assignments. In this LeaderPod we also focus on the fundamental elements of delegating. 

A Few of the Skills You Gain

  • You will gain a fundamental understanding of key theories in the evolution of management thought on motivation and to look for ways to apply the underlying principles of motivation in our leadership efforts.
  • You will gain a deeper appreciation for the purpose of work in the lives of the people we lead and consider ways that we as leaders can build greater meaning into the work we design.
  • You will deepen your reflection about why people follow leaders.
  • You will personally explore your own “why,” the “why” of your organization, and the “why” of individuals on your team.
  • You will begin to develop a deeper insight into how a leader can use their position to help people reach higher levels of performance.

Prioritizing, Planning, and Executing



Prioritizing, Planning, and Executing

The best leaders are skilled planners. They know how to translate their plans into action by prioritizing and driving execution. Keeping the work constantly connected to top priorities is the difference between promotion and plateau. Give yourself an edge with our LeaderPod on Prioritizing, Planning, and Executing.

About Prioritizing, Planning, and Executing LeaderPod

Why focus on planning?

“I have used these methods to prioritize, plan, and execute for most of my life. During a particularly difficult span of time I had a full-time job, taught as an adjunct professor, was getting a doctorate, coached varsity football and basketball at a high school, and was raising a family of eight children – all at the same time. ‘Overwhelmed’ is an understatement for the way I felt. The pressure was immense. I attribute my survival of that time first to my wife who is a constant support and help to me, and second to the techniques of being able to efficiently prioritize and work on those things that mattered most.”

Gordon E. Whitehead, Founder of Leaders247

Planning is an important business competency that requires a leader to invest thoughtful and deliberate energy. Leaders who plan well and execute well help their organizations accelerate to objectives. An outgrowth of a leader’s ability to plan and execute is that they and their people have more fulfilling work, more meaningful experiences, and they develop technically and professionally by being part of a culture that can prioritize, plan, and execute work. 

A Few of the Skills You Gain

In this LeaderPod we cover four essential principles to help advance abilities in the planning competency: (a) Prioritizing, (b) Strategic Planning, (c) Project Planning, and (d) Leading Execution.


Decision-Making and Problem-Solving



Decision-Making and Problem-Solving

Decision-making and problem-solving are closely related skills. Yet, there are big differences. When a leader makes a decision they commission action. Problem-solving is making decisions while creating change to resolves a problem. This LeaderPod will give you a competitive advantage by accelerating your abilities.

About Prioritizing, Planning, and Executing LeaderPod

In this LeaderPod we organize and present key principles that will help leaders advance their capabilities as decision-makers and as problem-solvers as individuals, members of a team, and as leaders of a team.

A Few of the Skills You Gain

  • Improve your ability to execute plans.
  • Develop your own light-weight and simple decision-making framework that takes advantage of both your thinking skills and the insights of others.
  • You will strengthen your ability to engage your team and others in the decision-making process.
  • You will be able to frame a problem and develop an intuitive and logical approach to problem-solving.
  • You will strengthen your ability to engage with your team and others in the problem-solving process.

A Leadership Simulation


This leadership simulation is comprised of a number of micro-case situations. The situations have all come from real experiences that we have witnessed or have been a part of. Only the names have been changed to protect the guilty. The simulated micro-cases are sequentially triggered. We recommend this simulation for leadership and team development.

Topics Covered

  • A Look Inside an Organization Design
  • Dealing with Difficult People
  • Valued Employees Who Quit
  • Problems with Strategic Execution
  • Engagement Issues
  • Strategy Blockers
  • Net Promoter Theory and Actions
  • Broken Projects
  • Team Issues of Motivation
  • Leveraging Talent and Growing People


Difficult People and Difficult Conversations

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Difficult People and Difficult Conversations

One of the first issues a new leader faces is working with difficult people. The way you manage a difficult person or conversation can make or break your career. This interactive LeaderPod provides tools you can use immediately to become a better leader and help your people become more effective.

About Difficult People LeaderPod

Here’s the truth – most people want to do well. They want to achieve, perform, and be successful. Still, there are times when even our best workers find themselves in situations where they have become a challenge to us or others. Helping people break through those negative moments to find their way back into high-performance is a competitive advantage of a good leader.

In this interactive LeaderPod you’ll gain practical experience in skill sets related to the difficult people and difficult conversations topic.

A Few of the Skills You Gain

  • You’ll gain a deeper understanding for how to work with challenging employees and business situations.
  • You’ll begin developing tools and processes to help you prepare for and deliver difficult communications.
  • You’ll recognize when and how to self-correct when you have made a mistake.