Leadership

Our leadership development support can take on many roles depending on the nature of the need.

Many businessmen feel they know all the answers, or feel they should know all the answers. A high proportion of managers have been promoted because “they were there”. To put someone in a management position and not give them support is a risky strategy. If you need support, or even if you are considering making a promotion and believe some external management or leadership skills training would be of benefit, then call us.

Many people believe leaders are born not made, at Sunlabs we believe that even great people have the capacity to become greater. There are many leadership styles (Transactional, Transformational, charismatic, Authentic etc) however we believe the best leaders and manager should remain flexible depending on circumstances.

Our leadership supports revolves around:

• Understanding flexible leadership styles,
• Motivational techniques, improving employee performance, conflict resolution.
• Mentoring, planning and problem solving.

Whatever your leadership/management needs call us to discuss.

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Managers or Leaders- a discussion on mentoring by associate: Colin Mackenzie.

There are several alternative perspectives on whether leaders are different from managers (Zaleznik, 1977;Yukl, 2006) and on their respective functional overlap (Mullins, 1993). Kotter(1999) suggests that leadership is about coping with change whereas management is about coping with complexity, procedures and practices. There is even an argument that successful execution of business depends on the integration of the roles between managers and that business should avoid an artificial separation of the roles (Lepsinger, 2010). In a small or medium size business the business principal is often in both leadership and management positions and therefore is a combination of both. They require both sets of skills, although they may not share them in the same proportions. Often this imbalance needs to be addressed or at least recognized. The author has seen a number of businesses fail because the leaders have been ‘leading’ but ignoring detail, and has seen other businesses stagnate because the leader has been micro-managing and not focusing on business growth.

Mentoring is one method of exploring possibilities of either expanding leadership roles or coaching managers. The success of mentoring depends to a certain extent on the relationship formed between the parties involved. If the relationship isn’t mutually constructive and the needs of the manager or leader are not fully explored at the outset then success is unlikely. A normal mentoring process would involve understanding the needs of the leader or manager, agreeing a route to follow and having a shape of the hopeful end result. During the mentoring a process of self-reflection is instigated in order to solidify the foundations of change and improvement.

Is your organization ready for mentoring?

You should consider what gaps need to be filled, is it the gap between leadership and managerial-ship, or is it a skills development need? Will the process be supported by all of the senior management team, can the process become inclusive; will enough time be allocated for the process to be properly considered; what are reasonable expectations for the outcomes?

Dr C.Mackenzie